


How to Feed a Cannibal

by Anarhichas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:45:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1405291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarhichas/pseuds/Anarhichas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Well, Armin,’ Hasek said. ‘Shall I be blunt?</p>
<p>'For the upcoming trial I will argue against the execution of your friend Eren Yeager. A lack of concord in the military police will, of course, be of considerable advantage to him. The price for this is yourself.’ Hasek watched Armin as he spoke, and the line of his mouth was arrogant. ‘Your body, to be exact. Just for tonight.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much [Claudine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/claudine), [Island_of_Reil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil) and anon for betaing! You are life savers.
> 
> Any concrit is more than welcome, thank you for reading :)

‘Sir? Sir. Excuse me, sir.’

Armin barely registered the voice until a hand settled gently on his shoulder; it left the moment he startled and turned.

The man standing close behind him was built like a scarecrow, with a plain face and combed head of short grey hair. His uniform, besides the badge of the Military Police, was one Armin didn’t recognise. He smiled in a mild sort of way, more polite than any measure of happy, and Armin resisted the urge to look behind himself to check for others in a hallway he knew to be empty.

No one had ever referred to him as _sir_ before. Armin hesitated, the taste of uncertainty thick in his mouth. This undoubtedly had to do with Eren’s trial, which would start in only a few days. While this would hardly be the first time he’d been approached by people wanting to know the truth, or why he wasn’t telling the truth, or just wanting to shout – _titan sympathiser, they killed my children, my parents, whoreson I hope you die_ – this felt entirely different.

‘Yes?’ Armin risked a glance down the corridor as he spoke. The man was too polite to be one of those rallying against Eren, surely – unless it was some sort of trick?

‘My name is Tony Whishaw; I work for Lieutenant Colonel Franz Hasek of the Military Police. The lieutenant colonel would like to extend an invitation for you to meet with him privately, this evening if possible, in the greatest confidentiality. If you’ll forgive me for speaking frankly I highly advise you to attend – you are, of course, aware of the current situation, and I will add that the conclusion of this meeting may be pertinent to the outcome of Mr Yeager’s case.

Whishaw reported the words in a smooth flow, fast and sure. His smile hardly faded throughout, and settled once more in his near-lipless gash of a mouth in the silence that followed. A meeting? With a lieutenant colonel? Armin barely stopped himself from gaping. Franz Hasek – the name was familiar, of course; it belonged to the man who commanded a significant portion of the Military Police force. Certainly far more senior than anyone who had ever bothered with him before.

But why the meeting? If it was to interrogate him about Eren’s nature, why so private? Bribery, then? Perhaps blackmail to make him lie in court? His earlier doubt solidified uncomfortably in his gut, and Armin felt suddenly very aware of how alone they were in the hallway – the cold draft, the hard stone under his feet, the light from the window highlighting Whishaw, who stood just a little too close, a little too predatory.

‘Yes, I will,’ Armin said, before he could second-guess his decision. Eren and Mikasa trusted him, after all. He had to do what was right. Anything else was inconceivable.

Whishaw smiled a little wider, wrinkling the pale skin around his mouth. His eyes remained cool and hard. ‘Excellent! If you head to the library for the second evening bell I can meet you there. You know where that is, don’t you? No? On the fourth floor, in the west wing, past the guest suites and directly behind the gatehouse. There’s a section there on historic poetry, very easy to find, in the second enclave to the right of the main doors. Meet me there. It rather goes without saying, I’m sure you’ll understand, that you are not permitted to speak of this to anyone.’

Armin nodded helplessly, caught up in the onslaught of information. ‘Yes sir,’ he said, saluting, and that was that. Whishaw nodded a goodbye and walked away with the air of someone with much work to be done but no doubt that it would be finished, brisk and unhurried. Armin remained standing, feeling foolish, in the hallway. He had the creeping feeling that he’d just done something he shouldn’t have – and with Eren’s life on the line, he couldn’t afford to misstep. But he could hardly back out of it now. No, he shouldn’t overthink it. This could still go so many ways that speculation was pointless.

The first evening bell came and went, and though it would be a while before the second Armin slipped out of the mess to find the library. No one marked his departure. Mikasa’s typical absence from the dinner hall did not surprise him – he’d seen her take food out to eat away from the prying crowds before. It still stung with something like disappointment. Loneliness. Perhaps as Eren’s sister she’d been allowed to see him. Armin hoped so but didn’t really believe it.

There were few people in the corridors, and those whom Armin did cross passed without saying a word. The question of whether Hasek wanted to help Eren, or help his execution, burnt at the back of his mind as he walked, threatening to distract from the directions he recited silently. He’d have to be careful, Armin told himself as he pushed open the heavy library door. He couldn’t afford to be tricked.

The few rooms were empty of people but held a collection of books easily larger than any Armin had ever seen in his life, dozens of stacked shelves held thousands of old red and brown bound volumes, and for a few long moments he just stood there and took in the sight. He had a strong suspicion that he shouldn’t be anywhere near the place.

Historical poetry, Whishaw had said. Most of the titles Armin could see were on mechanics, architecture and defence strategy.

He didn’t even know what historical poetry was. Books and education were for the rich, not refugees.

Armin peered into each of the small rooms branching from the main one, one by one. They held yet more shelves of books, surrounding nondescript tables and chairs. He couldn’t remember which room Whishaw had specified. At any second he expected someone to come in and start shouting at him for being somewhere he wasn’t meant to be. What was the punishment for trespassing? He didn’t know.

But he was alone. Armin hesitated then took out a book with a blank spine, cradling it in both hands. The cover read: _An account of natural history; essays on the formation and variation of fossil-shells_.

Fossil-shells? Armin blinked at the words then carefully flicked to the first page, but before he could read more than a few lines footsteps sounded in the corridor, clear and hard and coming closer. Armin froze, snapped the book shut and slid it back into place. He just managed to whirl around and away from the shelves when Whishaw entered. His expression didn’t change as his eyes latched on to Armin, either not seeing or ignoring his hasty guilt. He only smiled his polite smile, eyes like frozen chips of mud, and beckoned with a slight tilt of the head, leading the way back out of the library then through the corridors, silent but for sound of their boots on the stone, with Armin two anxious steps behind.

The floors were clean and the stonework smooth. Doors were made of polished dark wood, looking like they couldn’t be touched for fear of leaving fingerprints. Armin thought back to the book he’d held, the memory of its weight and mystery still pressing in his hands.

There were no cold drafts in the corridor – the air hung quiet and warm. Stifling. Armin pushed away the thought of the book. Maybe he could return later, but for now he needed to concentrate. The silence buzzed in his ears as if with every step a tangible pressure mounted.

Whishaw stopped in front of a door, buffed within an inch of its life like all the others, and knocked. In the second between a voice from inside calling ‘enter’ and the door swinging open, Armin thought suddenly of Eren in chains waiting for execution. He thought of Eren, dead, and Mikasa turning stone cold, turning her back to him, quick smiles and ever-patient ear leaving him as surely as water trickling from cupped hands. Armin thought of finding oceans, and mountains, and animals strange as whimsy, and no one to find them with. No one to eat with, or talk with, or share last night’s amusing dream with. No one to help him up when he got knocked down.

Armin swallowed with difficulty. He had to do whatever was needed to save Eren. Helping Franz Hasek or thwarting him – whatever it took, he would do it.

Ushered into the room and horribly aware of the door closing behind him, Whishaw on the other side, Armin saluted even before his eyes fell on the man behind the desk. Franz Hasek didn’t move or speak but studied him openly, gaze reminding Armin unwillingly of people watching chickens in the market – at once considering, feeling the weight of coins warmed in one hand and remembering the rich taste of meat or creamy egg, but also amused at the idiocy of the scruffy bird that scratched at bare cobbles and wondered why it couldn’t dig up any food.

Armin stared back, frozen in his salute, unable to take his eyes off the figure sitting at a lazy angle in front of him. Hasek was a large man, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, with a clean-shaven, rectangular face. He had deep-set eyes, small and sheltered beneath eyebrows that looked more like two bristling, dark moustaches, and a broad, straight nose. His lips were full but pale, near skin colour, and curling up at the edges in the kind of smile that came with enjoying a private joke. The light from the window highlighted his short brown hair, streaked with grey, like burnished waves of gold and silver. His uniform was immaculate, too well-fitting to be anything other than tailored.

He looked anywhere between forty and fifty – Armin automatically branded him old for a soldier, then corrected himself: Hasek was old only compared to real soldiers, the Scouting Corps, the ones who went out to fight and died soon after. Armin cut that thought off swiftly, mortified, as if Hasek could somehow read his mind and be insulted.

He looked away, wishing Hasek would say something. The room was square and warm, though the large hearth lay empty of fire, its logs untouched. There were curtains made of a thick red material, and an ornately patterned rug covering much of the floor. Apart from the desk there was a sofa, padded so full it looked like a fat, damask caterpillar, that together with matching chairs bracketed a low table. Each wall had a closed door, save for the one with the window.

The realisation that each piece of furniture was likely worth five times the entirety of his parents’ old house crept up on Armin and would not let go. He felt dirty and misplaced, a piece of litter blown in through an open window. What was Hasek waiting for?

Armin shifted nervously from foot to foot, gut tight with worry. Eren’s life hung on the line and here he was, standing there like a fool.

‘Well, Armin,’ Hasek said, making him jump, salute falling sloppy. ‘Shall I be blunt?’

His voice was deep, gravelly and amused.

‘Yes, sir,’ Armin bleated reflexively, too taken aback at the lack of formality to know what else to say. His voice paled with nervousness, embarrassingly high in the quiet room.

‘For the upcoming trial I will argue against the execution of your friend Eren Yeager. A lack of concord in the military police will, of course, be of considerable advantage to him. The price for this is yourself.’ Hasek watched Armin as he spoke, the line of his mouth arrogant. ‘Your body, to be exact. Just for tonight.’

_Your body, tonight._ Armin blinked, opening his mouth, but the words withered and died, settling to clog up his throat. Surely Hasek couldn’t mean – not that. But what else? What else could it be?

Hasek smiled at him.

Suddenly the walls felt claustrophobic, the air too still and heavy. Suddenly Hasek was no longer a man but something indefinably more, something titanic. An instinct in Armin, common in all animals, started to scream out in fear. _It’s a trap. Get out. Get out now._

Hasek chuckled and Armin closed his mouth with a snap. ‘More blunt?’ Hasek said, as if offering a drink. ‘Tonight you will stay in my rooms and I will fuck you. You’ll do precisely what I say.

Oh, don’t pull that face, it’s nothing you can’t take. I’m not into _that_.’

Armin couldn’t think of what _that_ might possibly be, the mysterious euphemism not in the least bit reassuring. The whole evening had turned surreal, like the first stages of a nightmare. The thought of that man touching him, skin to skin, sweat and saliva and worse – repulsive. Shameful. He was trembling, tiny shivers through his whole body, and he couldn’t stop; it felt like there were things crawling between his clothes and skin. He hadn’t even kissed anyone, not yet, and the thought of this man intruding into his messy teenage fantasies made him feel ill.

He couldn’t. This was wrong. Hasek was three times his age; his eyes held no affection, his voice nothing but business. It would hurt and Hasek wouldn’t care.

But – if it could save Eren?

What was one night if it meant Eren could be his again, his and Mikasa’s, for as long as they were alive?

Armin hesitated. He wanted to say yes, for Eren. For their future. He wanted to refuse and run away. How could he just give himself over to a stranger, trust them wholly, when the very thought made him feel sick in the deep tissues of his body?

Hasek was still watching him but his warm eyes had turned predatory and dangerous. Armin’s back prickled, heart pounding like a fist. He needed more time. Could he even do whatever was required of him? What if Hasek assumed that he knew how to do, and was practised in – it? What if Hasek decided halfway through that Armin was not good enough and refused to uphold his end of the deal?

‘Why me?’ Armin asked, voice a pitiful croak. He felt dirty – that Hasek had chosen him, and that he was considering it. He still wanted to know why. Because Armin knew he wasn’t good looking. Not like Jean, confident and sharply handsome. His body was a far cry from Reiner’s, tall and muscled and strong.

‘Because I want to,’ Hasek said, voice amused but final, something in it that ran close to lost patience.

‘How,’ Armin began, knowing the words for a false step instantly but unable to stop: ‘How do I know you’ll keep your word?’

Hasek’s amusement turned cold, unforgiving, and Armin’s throat dried at his response. His patience had run out. ‘Because I am a lieutenant colonel,’ he said, ‘and you, little Armin, are not.’

Silence. What else was there to say? Armin felt sick in his gut, skin crawling with the anticipation of touch as he realised he had never really had a choice to begin with.

‘Yes,’ he said, a hoarse whisper. ‘I’ll – I agree.’

‘Good.’ Hasek’s smile widened, twisting from cold into heat. He sat back in his chair; Armin couldn’t recall at what point he’d leant forward. ‘Now that we’re done with pleasantries: lock the hall door. Then remove your clothes – all of them – fold them, and put them on the table.’

Armin dropped his salute and turned slowly to the door. The space at his back felt like the space inside a titan’s mouth – the heavy click of the lock turning the sound of teeth snapping shut.


	2. Chapter 2

With each item of clothing removed he felt like he was peeling away a new layer of something in his mind, unravelling some thread holding him together. Armin didn’t look at Hasek as he stripped, past nimble hands now fumbling on buttons and buckles, feeling halfway sure that none of this could possibly be real. At any moment he’d wake, disorientated then immeasurably glad, back in his bunk in the palace cantonment.

Better yet he’d wake in the Training Corps barracks, sitting with his friends in the short moments when he could forget there was a titan out there that would someday kill him. Titans that would kill each of his friends.

Armin’s eyes were stuck on the grey stone of the fireplace when his cold hands paused on the waistband of his underwear. His mouth had dried out and sticky phlegm sucked at the breath in his throat. He couldn’t continue, didn’t want to remove this last pathetic shield against Hasek’s eyes. Just the thought of being naked made a feeling of violation seep over and into his skin. But how could he let Eren down now when he’d finally realised just how much Eren trusted him?

His underwear slipped off without a noise. Armin folded them and placed them on the pile with the rest of his clothes. He resisted the urge to cover himself, instead folding his arms across his chest to grasp at his elbows. Cold sweat and sickening anxiety clutched at him and he looked down at the floor, the table, the patterns in the rug – anywhere but at the man still sitting at his desk. Why had Hasek chosen him, of all people? Armin knew he wasn’t handsome or beautiful. His muscle lay in thin ropes, scrawny. He had a flat face, weak-chinned and stub-nosed, his hair an unflattering mess. Narrow shoulders, small hips. Skin decorated with welts, calluses and bruises, red and green and yellow. His cock wasn’t exactly tiny but it was still noticeably short of average.

Shame filled him up until Armin felt like hiding somewhere and never coming out, the humiliation of all his body’s faults and failures put on such explicit show. Anger followed, quick on shame’s tail – because he might be small and ugly but Hasek was a rapist and a blackmailer, selling his convictions, his voice, in a matter that could affect all of humanity. Just to fuck someone who couldn’t say no.

Hasek stood then, unhurried, and as the movement caught his eye Armin drew his arms close around himself. His fleeting anger drained away to leave a needle-pointed fear. Hasek stood at least a head taller than him and several inches broader. His smile had faded and Armin didn’t have a word for the expression left – intent, eager, cold. Hasek strode up to him and Armin’s hands clutched his elbows tighter, heart rattling in his chest.

The blow seemed to come from nowhere. It struck Armin’s gut, winding him, and he would have crumpled had there not been a hand like a vice around his upper arm. The second blow was a heavy slap to the face, numbing. The third landed after Hasek dropped him as if he’d got something distasteful on his hands, a kick to the tender flesh of Armin’s lower back where he curled on the stone floor.

Armin gagged, gasping for air, and tried to scramble away. Hasek only kicked him flat onto his back, then quickly stamping on Armin’s outstretched hand he ground down with his heel for a long, merciless second. Without lifting his foot he crouched to grasp Armin’s jaw and forcefully turn his head until they were face to face.

‘How do I know you’ll keep your word?’ Hasek sneered in a mocking falsetto as Armin’s throat closed up in terror. ‘Little brat. Not so smart-mouthed now, are we?’

Armin didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He grasped Hasek’s hand, which had shifted to force its fingers into his mouth, curling into a fist with the thumb under his chin to press deep into the soft skin there. His teeth clamped uselessly around Hasek’s knuckles, terrified jaw forced wide open. His tongue, squeezed down and back, felt like it could choke him.

‘If I say I’ll do something,’ Hasek said, grinding Armin’s head to the floor, ‘– support your monster of a friend? Build wings and fly over the goddamned walls? – don’t question it. A stupid whore like you doesn’t get to question his superiors. Got it?’

Armin panted messily, spilling saliva onto Hasek’s fist as he tried to say, _Yes sir, yes sir I’m sorry sir_. He couldn’t even move his head, let alone speak. Hasek towering above him and the unforgiving stone at his back made him, suddenly and desperately, want the weight of his 3DM gear wrapped tight around him. Reflexes screamed at him to employ grapple hooks and manoeuvres he didn’t have.

Hasek released his head, wiping the saliva off his fingers onto Armin’s cheek. He stepped back, immeasurably tall from where Armin lay curled on the floor, gagging on the foul taste of unwanted person on his squashed tongue and raw throat, and cradling his battered hand to his chest. When Hasek bent and laid a hand on his shoulder, gentle in such a false way it was sickening, panic crawled over Armin’s skin. It buried itself through his thin defences like maggots. As the hand guided him to stand Armin broke away, taking a tremulous step back. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t.

But the door out, and his clothes, were behind Hasek. Armin took another step back, one hand going to cover himself and the other in a tight hug across his chest and waist. Hasek merely followed him, reaching out to place one hand in a loose grip around the back of his neck. It stretched out hot and dry, feeling far more massive than he remembered; Hasek’s thumb rubbed light circles against his skin as if he were trying to soothe a frightened dog.

‘No,’ Armin said, trying to shrink back. His voice had gone as brittle as dry splinters of wood. ‘Stop, I–’

‘Be quiet,’ Hasek said, mildly. His grip tightened, just a little, and with the force of his presence, his broad chest and looming height, he crowded Armin back further steps and through the bedroom door.

Hasek dropped his hand then, allowing Armin to dart away, trembling. The room was large but decorated with a fireplace, a small rug, window and tall mirror next to a table holding only a basin, jug and comb. It was a bed – enormous and covered in furs and thick quilting, dominating the space.

‘Get on,’ Hasek said from where he stood by the open door. Armin didn’t dare look at him, not wanting to see whether the smirk in his voice matched with one on his lips. Not wanting to see Hasek at all. Instead he looked about the room, taking in the hard corners and barren walls. Nowhere to hide. Even the space under the bed lay wide open, bare and unsafe.

‘No, I – I can’t do it, I want to stop–’

‘Armin,’ Hasek said, his voice indulgent but calm and clear. ‘Be quiet and get on the bed.’

Armin shut his mouth and slowly climbed up onto the mattress. It was for Eren. For Eren, he could do this.

The fingers Hasek had stamped on ached. His face, too, and gut and lower back throbbed distantly. Armin sat facing the carved headboard, legs folded beneath him and sinking into the soft covers. He clutched the feather duvet tight, with his fists pressed down in front of his knees. The skin on his arched back crawled with fear, as vulnerable as a soldier with broken gear and no horse. Over the sound of blood in his ears and his own breath slipping out of control he could hear Hasek undress. The rasp of fabric, the chink of buckles. It seemed far too loud to be real.

The mattress dipped behind him. Warm hands settled on his shoulders, giant hands, stroking his marked skin. Though their touch was light they pinned him down.

Armin could feel his heart pounding, violent and sickening, as if it wanted to tear itself loose. The hands trailed his back and shrinking down further he ducked his shoulders, bowing to the headboard as if it were sacred. The hands stroked the protruding lumps of his spine and curled around to pet and caress his trembling belly. They nudged his legs open, guiding his body to unfold, balancing on hands and knees.

The touch of Hasek’s cock, hard and hot and slick, sent Armin jolting forward as if it had been a slap. His breath caught, stomach turning. This was wrong – utterly, entirely wrong.

Hasek chuckled as he reached to pull Armin back in so that the back of his thighs pressed against the front of his own, and with one hand remaining on the back of Armin’s neck the other found his arsehole. A finger pushed in, barely penetrating but smearing an oily liquid before it retreated.

Hasek’s cock, guided by the same hand, pressed and pressed. Armin’s body took it in, unwilling, even as his heart squeezed in agony. It felt like a bludgeon.

Armin was not unused to pain. Smacks from his parents, punches and kicks from the local bullies, wracking hunger from when good days had given half a potato for the main meal and on bad days nothing at all. Cramping muscles from training too long in gear, aches that went bone-deep and kept him up all night. Falling from heights or being beaten black and blue in hand-to-hand combat.

It was not the pain that bowed Armin’s head and forced ugly sobs from his chest. Hasek had stopped moving but Armin could feel it inside of him, disgusting and foul and wrong. Violation. He thought he might shake apart.

‘Hush,’ Hasek said, pressing his lips to Armin’s shoulder. His free hand massaged the insides of Armin’s thighs, the base of his spine, the flat muscle of his arse. ‘Hush, relax. It’s okay. Just relax.’

It wasn’t okay. It would never be okay. Armin choked on his sobs, thick and wretched. But Eren – for Eren, it’d be worth it. It had to be.

Hasek started to push in further. He relaxed his grip on Armin’s neck to drag his fingers down his arm, stopping to place his hand, heavy, on top of Armin’s own. He’d chosen the bruised hand, the one with swollen knuckles, red and aching, but Armin barely noticed. The places they touched, the swathes of back, thigh, leg and arse, felt like they were on fire – hypersensitive, as if it were needles and not skin scraping across him.

Would his gut distend with Hasek, whose hips had started to jerk back and forth? Armin’s breath moaned through his throat, wet and pathetic little pants as his body shook with the thrusts. Hasek’s fingertips, running back and forth from Armin’s ribcage to the base of his flaccid cock, felt as if they searched for a bulge, distorted evidence of himself, and the thought of that made Armin gag.

‘Tell me,’ Hasek said. His voice had quickened, turned rough, punctuated with his own thrusts. ‘Tell me who’s fucked you. Who you’ve fucked.’

Like an ancient language the words didn’t make sense. Armin whined as Hasek shifted his knees to strike a new angle, driving deeper, violating further. More pain, sharp knives splitting him open. ‘I don’t–’ Armin tried to say, unable to finish when his tongue twisted up in his raw throat, strangling.

Hasek leant forward to breathe humid words into Armin’s ear. ‘Tell me who,’ he said, ‘has fucked you.’

‘No one.’ Armin’s words sobbed. He didn’t understand why he’d been asked, or why it mattered. He answered honestly, because what else could he cling to if nothing at all made sense?

‘Liar,’ Hasek breathed, somehow triumphant. His laugh sounded more like a wheeze.

‘No – I’m not,’ Armin protested, unable not to. What was Hasek saying? He wasn’t lying, why–?

‘You’re a filthy whore,’ Hasek hissed, and laughed again. ‘A lying, filthy whore. Look.’

Without warning Hasek looped an arm across his chest, holding the two of them tight together, and sat back so they knelt upright. The sudden movement took Armin by surprise and he offered no resistance. Then, with Hasek’s hand forcing the back of his skull, his head was turned to the right. ‘Look,’ Hasek said again.

Through watery eyes Armin looked, and Armin stared back at him. It was the mirror, forgotten, but in that moment it was near all that existed in the world.

Armin looked at his reflection watching himself, and saw a red-flushed face break open in misery. He saw a pitiful body, a weak and inferior parody of the body behind it, which split it open.

‘Don’t lie or you’ll fucking regret it,’ Hasek said, wide eyes also on the mirror, grin distorting his face. His breath ran hard. ‘Don’t think I don’t know – what a joke, someone like you a soldier? Who’d you spread your little bitch legs for?’

Armin watched as Armin in the mirror opened his mouth, but no words came out. He didn’t know. He didn’t know at all.

‘Who trained you? Shadis? Did you let him fuck you, just so you could graduate?’

The hand on Armin’s skull tightened its grip, pulling at his hair. Hasek had closed his eyes, hips moving again. ‘Yes,’ Armin said, small and wet and gasping. It felt like a betrayal.

‘And the Scouts – who there? Levi wouldn’t touch filth like you, but Hange? Did you lick her ugly cunt clean? What about Zacharius?’

‘Yes,’ Armin said again, like begging. He didn’t understand but shame flooded him anyway.

‘Your classmates?’ Hasek’s voice went on and on, never ending. ‘What do you do so they don’t beat the shit out of you? Or leave you to titans? Tell me. Describe it.’ They moved together with the force of his thrusts.

‘I –’ Armin whispered, then moaned in fear as Hasek’s fingers wrapped around his throat. ‘On my knees. In – in the dormitories.’ His voice shuddered as they rocked. The words didn’t feel like his own but someone else’s entirely. ‘I sucked them off.’

He didn’t know where the lie had come from. It was a lie because he wasn’t a whore, and he’d never done this before, and this time didn’t count because it was for Eren. He owed Eren this. It’d be worth it – when it all got better, when they were all free, it’d be worth it.

‘Yes,’ Hasek hissed, and said nothing more. Panting loud and ragged he leant forward, forcing Armin back onto his hands and knees. His thrusts deepened, sped up, and Armin put his head down to cry into the sheets. It hurt too much and he didn’t understand. He just wanted it to be over. Soon. Now. It had to be. Please.

Hasek had grasped Armin’s hands, trapping one in each of his own, and his hot breath painted a revolting mist onto the back of Armin’s neck. And the thrusts, never stopping, coated the inside of him with abhorrence. He wanted to just fold away, crumble into nothing, yet somehow he couldn’t move even to fall.

For Eren, it’d be worth it.

Hasek stiffened as he came, muscles tense and quivering, and Armin bit the inside of his lip bloody. If he didn’t think about it he couldn’t think of how wrong it all was.

Hasek laughed low and out of breath as he withdrew, and collapsed onto the bed with Armin crushed beneath him.


	3. Chapter 3

Armin shivered. He felt cold but he was sweating, skin clammy. Beneath him the sheets, so soft before, now stuck to his body. His insides seemed to quiver, his heart aching as it pounded, rabbit-fast and shallow. He wanted to throw up.

On top of him Hasek burnt – skin like the mid-summer sun, brutal, and slick with sweat. His breathing had calmed though still crushed down with every inhale. But he didn’t otherwise move or say anything, as if he’d fallen asleep.

Armin squeezed his eyes tight shut and prayed that he hadn’t. He wanted to skin himself just to wriggle free, throw Hasek off and run, but his limbs felt as weak as rotting wood, ready to crumble in the lightest of grips. Fear, too, clung to his bones and paralysed them – if he moved he might rouse Hasek faster.

Had he done the right thing? He couldn’t tell.

The third evening bell rang in the distance, solemn clanging. Would anyone notice he was missing? Armin doubted it. The others he shared dormitories with tended to ignore him, and Mikasa saw him so rarely she might not think anything of it if he’d been gone for days. Eren wouldn’t – he couldn’t, not as he was – and even if he did somehow find out, he had so much more to worry about.

And the others of the 104th? He didn’t even know where they were. Thomas, Mina, Nac and Mylius – dead and gone.

Loneliness swept over him suddenly, settling in as a sharp pain in his throat and an aching pull in his chest. What if they did execute Eren?

What if the whole thing was useless no matter what they did? What if with every battle more and more of his friends died until there was simply no one left?

With my skills, Armin thought, clutched by a sort of dead, hollow certainty, at least I’ll be eaten long before the last of them.

Tears swelled hot behind his closed eyelids, unexpected and uncontrollable. They spilt, wetting the duvet, and Armin took in a sharp, shuddering breath. It exhaled as a sob, tight and wet, and once he started he couldn’t seem to stop. Was this all he could do any more? Freeze up and cry like a child?

He felt dirty, irreparable. Broken into something useless, something to be replaced.

Hasek stirred. Armin flinched as lips pressed against the back of his neck and the slope of his shoulders, a line of chaste kisses and hot, damp breath. Hasek’s chin, rough with the lightest growth of stubble, scraped across his skin like wet sandpaper. He still couldn’t stop crying.

‘How old are you, Armin?’ Hasek asked. His voice had turned lazy and sated. He didn’t sound particularly interested in the answer.

Long seconds passed before Armin could gather the word in his mouth. It seemed an abstract concept, barely graspable. ‘Fifteen,’ he said finally, small and thick.

Hasek hummed. Then he shifted his weight again, slipping one hand under Armin’s chest, palm up. His fingertips grazed one of Armin’s nipples. Armin shuddered, clutching the duvet in his fists.

Hasek chuckled and repeated the motion, more deliberate. His curled chest and pubic hair stuck to Armin’s back and thighs.

‘You masturbate,’ he said. ‘How?’

Armin’s breath caught. Thrown utterly by the question, he didn’t reply. It felt absurd, that these few words could make him feel any more invaded, but something in them struck him. Hasek had taken enough already – he didn’t need to know this. It was too much.

Hasek’s hand slid down to between Armin’s legs, where his fingers crooked up to cup him. Armin tensed and would have moved further and more violently had Hasek’s weight not pinned him down. All thought of masturbation left his head, leaving only panicky fear.

‘Do you fantasise? Who about?’ Hasek asked, with his lips brushing Armin’s skin where shoulder and neck joined. His voice had woken, become more alert than before.

‘No, I–’ Armin stuttered.

‘Your team? Mikasa Ackerman is very beautiful, isn’t she. Do you get off on thinking about her spreading her pretty legs for you, begging for more? Or how she would tie you down and fuck you till you cried?’ Hasek’s mouth crept across Armin’s skin, nosing aside sweat slicked hair. ‘No? It’s true you seem very invested in your friend Eren Yeager. Do you imagine him as enthusiastic in bed as he is elsewhere?’

‘Please stop,’ Armin begged, and wriggled as Hasek’s fingers tightened into a loose grip.

Unexpectedly Hasek did stop. His hand paused, flattened, then dragged up to lie under Armin’s stomach. Humming as if considering something, he lay there motionless. Then in one smooth movement he rolled onto his back, holding Armin to keep him pressed to his chest, and sat up.

Armin cried out as he was pulled up forcefully, folded to sit in Hasek’s lap with his legs splayed over Hasek's crossed ones. Unbalanced, he clutched at the arms holding him, then let go abruptly. He could feel Hasek’s cock, still limp, against the curve of his arse, which hurt with a sharp, internal pain.

‘But you do masturbate,’ Hasek said. Armin paused before replying – in front of them stood the mirror, and for a moment he couldn't tear his eyes from the two figures reflected in it.

‘Y-yes,’ he said without thinking, forcing his gaze to the floor.

‘How?’ Hasek spoke right next to his ear, low and indulgent.

‘I don't–’ Armin stuttered, more for the need to say something than anything else. How could he answer that? What did Hasek want to hear?

Hasek's response was to take Armin's left hand, the one that wasn't bruised and swollen, in both of his own. He reached down and wrapped it around Armin's cock, holding him there with strong fingers. ‘Show me,’ he said. He sounded amused yet intense as he removed his hands.

Armin closed his eyes to avoid the mirror. ‘I can't,’ he said, because even the touch of his own hand felt wrong and dirty. He shook, breath trembling, humiliation flushed through him at the feel of his pathetic, flaccid self. Tiny in comparison, even relatively. As he let go, taking away his hand, both of Hasek's returned. They clasped him, squeezing his cock through his own fingers, and Armin jerked reflexively, trying to get free.

‘Armin,’ Hasek said, his amusement replaced by casual warning. ‘Remember what you agreed to do? It was to obey everything I told you, wasn't it. I let you refuse to answer my last question, but if you keep acting up I'm afraid I'll have to break off our little arrangement.’

Armin froze. No. After everything he’d done already – no. He couldn't do that. Just the thought of it felt like the ground opening up beneath him.

‘So. Are you going to cooperate?’ Hasek's lips touched the shell of Armin's ear.

‘Yes,’ Armin said, barely a gasp.

‘Good.’ Hasek breathed out and the sigh coated the line of Armin's jaw, ruffling his hair. ‘Now apologise and we can continue.’

‘I'm sorry,’ Armin whispered. Hasek made an appreciative noise before removing his hands. One arm immediately went to curl tight around Armin, hand splayed around his waist and holding him close. He didn't say any more, and Armin realised with a sickening feeling that he was waiting.

God, he hated him.

Armin's hand trembled as it gripped his cock. The other clutched his thigh, careful to avoid touching Hasek, meaningless when the whole of his back burned, pressed tight against Hasek’s front. How could he masturbate like this? He would never be able to get it up, not with the memories turning over in his mind, the aches and revulsion still seeping into his bones like water into dry cloth.

But he had to. If Hasek refused to honour his side of the bargain – no. He couldn't think that, not now. He just had to trust that Hasek would.

Honour and trust. What stupid words in a situation like this.

Armin moved his hand, stroking slowly down his flaccid cock. The touch, something he'd done countless times before, behind the dormitories or biting his lip under the covers, had somehow become disgusting. Any memory of getting hard, or orgasm, had left as surely as if it had never been there in the first place. The casual lust of teenagers felt like an impossible dream.

Reaching the head of his cock, the foreskin sliding across it in a way that sent a small shiver of nausea through him, Armin's hand jolted seemingly of its own accord. The sudden jar was more of a shock than painful, and Armin let out a small noise.

Behind him, close to his ear, Hasek chuckled.

Armin dragged his hand back down to the base of his cock, but it felt rough, not good at all. He tried again, up and down, but his fingers gripped too tight and his wrist ran clumsy, like trying to manipulate a puppet on a string rather than his own body.

Armin shuddered a breath, feeling hot tears prickle the back of his eyelids in humiliation. He couldn't do it. But he had to.

Again, useless, awkward and uncomfortable strokes. It felt perverted, like he wasn't even doing it to his own body. But he had to – he had to. Armin bit down on the inside of his lower lip, trying uselessly to block out the hot touch of the body behind him. How did he usually masturbate? That had been the original question, hadn't it. What felt good, what he liked. He could barely remember.

Armin clutched his cock at the base using the ring formed by thumb and index finger, and with the rest of his fingers he grasped weakly at his balls. He rolled them, pulling gently at the loose skin. And there – a small flicker of something hot and tight. It left as soon as Armin recognised it, ashamed.

But it had been there. He could do this.

Releasing its grip on his thigh Armin's right hand took the place of his left, cupping his balls. Now free his left hand grasped his cock fully, fingertips pressing lightly into the ridge on the underside as it slid up and down. The movement pulled his foreskin across the head, rhythmic, and sent tight little rolls of pleasure into the rest of his body. Disgusting. Behind him Hasek was shifting, rocking his hips – but no. Don't think of Hasek. The heat could be water. With his eyes closed he could be sitting in the shower house back at the barracks, back pressed to the slippery side of a bath tub. There was no one else around.

He sped up a little, coaxing himself into half-hardness. He could feel the narrow veins in the surface of his cock, the curling of his public hair. Sweat made his skin moist but without anything for lubrication he was starting to ache, a growing burn from the constant friction. It had never been a problem before, but then he’d never had to work this hard before either. His hand still trembled, wrist fumbling, ungainly.

Hasek's hand, where it lay splayed against his waist, shifted. Armin's eyes snapped open at the unexpected movement.

Oh. He'd forgotten entirely about the mirror.

Hasek's face was pitched down slightly but his eyes didn't have far to go to meet Armin's – he'd been watching their reflections. His mouth split into a wide grin as Armin's hand faltered and jumped away, as if guilty. Stupid, Armin told himself desperately, of course Hasek would be watching, that was the whole reason they were sat in front of the mirror in the first place. He'd known that from the start. But his heart stuttered at the realisation anyway, and the small erection he'd managed withered away in shame.

As he sat there he realised that Hasek's hips were rocking against his, and that Hasek's own cock lay hard, pressing slick and heavy against his lower back.

It was too much – something in him snapped. Armin cried out, wordless, and started to struggle. He needed to get out, anywhere but here, he didn't care any more–

Hasek's arm around his stomach tightened, impossible to escape, and he reached around to grip a flailing arm. Armin kicked, panic bubbling up to the surface to wipe away all other thought. He had to escape. Nothing else mattered. He couldn't think.

His arm released, Armin pried at Hasek's iron grip around his waist, no closer to freedom than he had been since starting to struggle but unable to care. Then a hand closed around Armin's throat, merciless. He choked, spluttering, only able to draw in the smallest of breaths. He struggled harder, taking his hands from his waist to clutch uselessly at Hasek's suffocating hold.

‘Stop.’ Hasek's voice hurt his pounding head. Armin didn't stop. Utter panic had gripped him, taken over his mind, and wouldn't let go.

The hand tightened again. Suddenly Armin couldn't breathe, couldn’t take in the smallest gasp of air – he suffocated, mind swallowed in the terror of death, so frightened he was so frightened he didn't want to die please not like this please–

Then Armin could breathe, and he sucked in needy lungfuls of air. His throat felt raw. His body lay limp against Hasek's but didn't have the strength to move away. The blood pounded in his ears, deafening. At some unknown point he had started to cry again.

‘Are you quite finished?’ Hasek sounded half irritated, half out of breath, his hand still resting on Armin's throat. Armin didn't dare look at his face in the mirror. Instead, he screwed shut his eyes.

‘Yes,’ Armin said, though the word came out a mere croak, barely intelligible. His throat seemed far too dry considering how slick with tears, snot and sweat the rest of his face was. And – oh god, Hasek had said he might pull out of the bargain if Armin disobeyed him again, and he had, and what if he decided Armin wasn't good enough now? That everything had been for nothing.

‘Please,’ Armin said, then again when his voice trembled and could barely be heard. He clutched at Hasek's arm. ‘Please don't, I'll do what you say, please–’

Hasek cut him off with a twitch of his fingers. ‘Really,’ he said slowly, unimpressed. ‘It seems to me like you're pretty unable to follow orders.’

‘No,’ Armin begged. This couldn't be happening. He needed to do this. ‘Please – I can – I'll do it, I swear–’

Hasek hummed, thoughtful. With a jolt Armin realised that his erection still rested on his back, and in desperation he rocked his hips, rubbing against Hasek at the same time as placing one of his hands back on his own flaccid cock. He couldn't let it fall through now. The thought of having done all this, and knowing that nothing had come from it, that Eren was no safer – it wedged like a knife under his ribs.

Hasek's breath hitched. Then he laughed out loud, and Armin flinched from the noise.

‘Damn,’ Hasek said, leaning in close to speak. ‘You're an eager whore, aren't you. All right, but this is your last chance. You will do exactly as I say – no more, no less. So you will make yourself come, and it had better be soon.’

Armin nodded, eyes once again falling closed. He didn’t trust himself to speak, thankful and terrified at the same time, until it felt like his heart might burst. His throat still burnt and he felt lightheaded. His ribs were squeezing, painful and cold; his arse and cock hurt with a sharp agony, ruined deeper than flesh and bone.

He could barely manage it, but he took his hand from Hasek’s where it still encircled his neck. Then he grasped his cock, using his thumb to massage the line where head met shaft. It felt mechanical. Ugly. Pulling back the foreskin he swiped the pad of his thumb over the tip of the head. A stroke, up and down, another. Touching his balls with his free hand he massaged the rim of the head, another swipe across the tip.

Cold panic continued to churn in his stomach. Hasek, an enormous presence behind him, could not be ignored.

Hasek was about the same size as Reiner. The thought came to Armin that he could almost imagine, with Hasek quiet and his own eyes closed, that instead Reiner sat behind him. Reiner, with his embarrassed grin and gentle hands. He always looked so guilty when he beat Armin down time after time in one-on-one combat, and always extended a hand to help Armin up, no matter what. He never hesitated to back Armin up when others thought they could push him around.

Armin sucked in a quick breath as he stopped that train of thought. No, what was he doing? He couldn’t think of his friends now – couldn’t dirty them by including them. Couldn’t let them anywhere near Hasek.

But how else could he hope to do this? He needed to. For Eren.

Armin choked back a sob. What if Hasek no longer existed, and instead Reiner held him close – Reiner, a considerate lover, ever careful against pressing too hard or going too fast. He would need encouragement. Armin would have to use his own hands to guide him to the right speed. Would he be large, to match the rest of him? Yes, but not too much so. Erect, with the red flushed head of his cock escaping the foreskin, certainly impressive. Reiner would be bashful about it but he’d laugh too, because he’d be the sort to tickle Armin on the sensitive spots of his sides while they lay there, and manage to not ruin the mood.

Armin’s hand trembled as it stroked his cock, erect now. Far too small to be Reiner’s. Hasek – not Hasek. Reiner. He just needed to hold on to the fantasy a little longer.

Armin would take Reiner in his mouth. He’d look up and watch Reiner’s face, red-cheeked and slack-mouthed. Reiner would grip the bedsheets with his hands and not allow himself to jerk his hips up, always so careful never to force anything. Armin would love and wonder at his ability to take Reiner apart with such small, simple motions. And then Reiner, on his hands and knees, would cover Armin completely, head to toe, their skin pressed together, and Reiner would reach down and grasp Armin – gently, always gently–

Armin came, pulling out the orgasm with a last few strokes of his fist, hating it. He gasped, riding the waves of pleasure in the same instant as snapping out of his fantasy. Come splattered a messy line across his thighs and the sheets in between. Hasek reappeared at the same moment Reiner was gone – his hand gripping Armin’s waist with bruising strength, the other on his own cock, jerking off. Their eyes met in the mirror and Armin bent down, hiding his face in his knees. Hasek let him, and moments later his come hit Armin’s back.

Armin couldn’t tell how long they stayed like that, while he shivered and Hasek’s breathing calmed. Then large hands guided Armin upright, forward to standing, and shuffled him to the middle of the floor.

Armin let himself be positioned. A painful emptiness filled his chest and his legs felt like they might buckle at the slightest touch. What had he done? His teeth chattered. He’d violated Reiner in his mind, as sure as Hasek had done him. How could he go back and look him, or any of them, in the eye?

The first touch of the cold, damp cloth sent Armin flinching away. Hasek only chuckled, weary, and pulled him back to where he sat on the edge of the bed. He’d taken the bowl and jug of water from the table and with a soft flannel he wiped along Armin’s shoulders and down his back. Cleaning the streaks of his own come off. He rinsed the flannel then nudged Armin’s legs open.

Armin didn’t have it in him to resist. The water dripped down his thighs, icy cold, as Hasek washed every inch of his skin – around his tender arsehole, his cock and balls, as clinical as a doctor. Down his legs, then turning Armin, up again. It occurred distantly that the water in the bowl was not being replaced – not so much cleaning as diluting and spreading across the whole of his body. Armin just stood there, shivering now in cold as much as shock.

Eventually the flannel smeared across his chest and up around his neck. One last rinse and Hasek, steadying Armin with one hand on his shoulder, reached up to wipe his face. Droplets squeezed into his eyes and rolled down to drip off his chin. Hasek ran the flannel up, pushing back Armin’s fringe to expose his forehead, damping down his hair until the strands stuck together in long wet spikes.

Hasek smiled as if surveying a long job well done. He dropped the flannel in the bowl where it splashed dirty water onto the floor.

‘Take these and put them on the table in my main room,’ he said mildly. Professional, detached, like instructing a maid. ‘Get changed. Then you may go.’

Armin didn’t reply. He’d fallen into numbness. He crouched, collecting the bowl and jug, and just as he made to get up Hasek’s hand shot out. It grasped his shoulder, holding him down.

‘Remember,’ Hasek said, and danger danced along the tone of his voice. ‘You will speak of this to no one.’

‘Y-yes,’ Armin said, forcing his tongue to move. Hasek’s hand withdrew and Armin stumbled out of the bedroom.

A fire in the hearth lit the main room, bright enough after the dimness of the bedroom that it hurt his eyes. Armin placed the bowl and jug on the table, leaving little puddles of water where they still dripped, and taking up his clothes he started to dress. It felt foul, the contact with his skin dirtying the fabric.

His fingers refused to cooperate on the straps of his gear. The fire radiated welcome heat but Armin didn’t dare stand too close.

The fire. The hearth had not been lit when he’d come in.

Someone had come in, tended the room, and left.

Vomit hit the back of his throat, swelling into his mouth to fill up his cheeks and push at his lips, swallowed down with difficulty. Armin’s hands started to tremble violently and he dropped the straps to hang loose around himself. Who had – and they must have heard everything, they must have–

The floor seemed to tilt. Suddenly the door to the bedroom felt massive, looming, and Armin fled out into the hallway, undone buckles jangling. His heart pounded. He felt weak, smashed apart, light headed. The urge to escape, to put distance between him and Hasek, drove him into a mindless run down the torch-lit corridor.

There were no torches in the dormitories, not past curfew. The moonlight from outside made it possible to see by, if barely, and Armin clambered into his bed before stripping. A couple of voices grumbled at the noise he made but Armin ignored them as he dropped his clothes to the floor.

He could still feel everything. Remember everything as if it were still happening. Armin shivered and squashed his head into the pillow. He felt disgusting, diseased and incurably so. He should have washed properly before fouling the sheets. Should have gone and emptied his stomach, for fear of it happening here. He thought of Hasek and felt hunted. What had he done? Pulling the covers up over his head like he had done as a child didn’t make anything any better, but he clutched them there anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

Armin lay in bed, letting the sounds of the others in the dormitory wash over him until none of the memories – only a faint crawling sensation – lingered from the nightmare he’d just woken from.

He remembered hands and a mouth and – no. He shouldn’t think about that.

He didn’t want to get up. Didn’t want anyone to see him or his new bruises that would give away what he’d been up to for sure. Humiliation and fear sang loud in his veins; he lay curled on his side, tucked under the covers, and his skin prickled with sweat. Eyes closed and facing the wall, he could still feel the stares the others sent him weighing down his body, heavy like bricks. He didn’t want to be known as lazy, but being known as a whore was worse.

Armin’s throat rubbed sore as he breathed, like he’d been coughing. His hand ached, uncomfortably hot, and his arse throbbed, hurting sharply when he moved. His thighs, arms and stomach felt bruised. Not just a whore but a whore who’d let himself be beaten when the pay was good enough.

The others dressed, chatting and laughing as they shuffled out slowly, in pairs or small groups, and no one said anything to him. It seemed like an age had passed before the last few left and Armin felt confident enough of being alone to pull down the covers, roll over and take a tentative glance around.

In training there had been morning inspections before breakfast. There seemed to be nothing of the sort here: day after day the beds were left unmade, clothes draped across the frames and on the floor, personal items scattered about. Still, nervous habit forced Armin up, dressed and his bed made, fearful of being caught even though he doubted anyone would come. Then he grabbed his towel and clean clothes, heading to the baths.

No one stopped to give him a second look on the way, and the communal baths were empty of people. Armin’s gut unclenched just a little at that relief. He undressed mechanically and picked up a bar of soap and a bucket, which he filled with cold, clear water. Then he proceeded to scrub himself raw.

Bending over ached, but dully. A quick, uneasy glance into the dirty mirror showed his neck to be reddened only, and if he sported any new bruises Armin couldn’t pick them out from the older ones. Even the swelling in his hand had gone down to barely noticeable.

Armin looked away, focusing on the wet stone floor as he resumed washing. A rush of some emotion rose in his chest, one he couldn’t quite identify but felt a lot like shame. Shame and the anger of being cheated. For all that it felt like his whole body had been broken into a hundred ugly pieces Hasek had barely touched him.

He wanted more. He wanted vivid bruises, splintered bones and bleeding. He wanted tangible proof of what Hasek had done. Validation for what he still felt.

A stupid thing to want, Armin told himself, but couldn’t quite manage to drive it away.

He tipped the bucket over his head, letting the remaining cold water pour down his shivering body. He still had soap in his hair, and as he went to get more water his skin prickled with vulnerability.

The extra water didn’t seem to help. Even when the soap suds had been washed away he still felt dirty, riddled with some filth caked deep into the pores of his skin. Armin closed his eyes as he rubbed down his body, from scalp to feet, forcing himself to concentrate on the pressure of skin on skin. His own hands on his own body. Nothing else. Except – he couldn’t stop feeling Hasek instead. Hasek’s hands and mouth and skin, everywhere, constantly, and how dare he, how _dare_ he. Armin crouched shakily, back pressed to the wall and head tucked down. His hands scraped up his thighs, leaving long fingernail tracks, bloodless white lines that flushed red quickly. His body was his own, his sex his own. His fantasies and masturbation and orgasm were his own and no one else’s. How dare Hasek take them.

Armin’s breath shook as his hand reached his cock, cradling it after a brief moment’s hesitation. He needed Hasek gone, needed to take back what he’d stolen.

Dimly Armin recognised the tightness in his chest and the trembling of his hands as hysteria, a wild desperation that had picked him up like leaves trapped in a brisk wind. But as he crouched, pulling at his cock with a rough, uncontrolled hand, he didn’t care. He needed to do it. He couldn’t let Hasek have this.

Breaths dissolved into pants and Armin’s back arched off the wall as his hips started to move in the messy off-beat tempo set by his hand. He’d done this countless times before – the action and pressure and curling toes remained entirely familiar. But something was missing, some vital element that drove the pleasure.

Sudden doubt drove into his gut like a spear and Armin’s eyes snapped open. The flood of relief at seeing himself still alone shook out a shaky laugh from his open lips but even the evidence in front of him did little to calm the racing pulse of his heart. The feeling of being horribly exposed, unfriendly faces watching, did not leave.

He continued anyway, a little quieter than before, and with his eyes open. It was taking too long – the movements had turned mechanical, the spark of pleasure becoming painful. Teeth clenched, Armin gripped a little harder and pulled faster. He had to do this. He would refuse to consider the possibility that he couldn’t get back what Hasek had taken.

The orgasm, when it came, ran like a hand dragged through his insides. Armin pressed aching knuckles over his mouth, forcing his throat closed and silent, and waited for the afterglow. It didn’t arrive. Instead of tired satisfaction the feeling of being exposed grew, swelling up to seize his limbs and ridicule his tiny, hunched form. His breathing wouldn’t calm. What if someone had come in while he’d had his eyes closed?

He didn’t feel any better. If anything he felt worse. What had he been thinking – that this would cure anything?

Cleaning up shouldn’t have taken long, but he couldn’t use water without soap, he told himself, and the soap seemed to get everywhere. He’d been sweating so he scrubbed his armpits and groin, and his hands must be dirty so he scrubbed them, under his nails and up his wrists, couldn’t stop until all of his arms were pink under the bruises. His feet standing on this floor had to be filthy, so those got scrubbed too – ankles, calves, knees and thighs, every inch of skin. His back, touching the wall – disgusting – had to be cleaned. And he’d splattered dirty water on his front and face. More scrubbing.

The feeling of being watched and laughed at, sneering, greedy eyes, slipped between the soap suds to coat his bones. Armin dried himself and dressed quickly.

Standing in the corridor, Armin hesitated. In front of him he could hear people – that low-grade, indistinct chatter of multiple groups talking amongst themselves. Breakfast now over, the dorms would be full of those who had no morning duties; Armin quailed at the thought of having to face them.

But where else was he meant to go? There were so few quiet places in the castle. The library? Just the thought of returning there made him feel sick. And what if, while he wandered the corridors, Whishaw found him again?

But that was stupid, Armin told himself. No doubt Whishaw had plenty of other things to be doing. He wouldn’t be wasting time like that.

In the end Armin slunk through the hall towards the dormitories, circling around them and heading down to the courtyards. He tucked his head down and walked a little faster when he passed people, and no one spoke to him. Cold breezes swept the stone corridors, leaky windows and bad masonry not details anyone had bothered to correct, at least not in this part of the castle. Armin shivered, the chill from his cold bath creeping into his body and refusing to leave. Even with the windows letting in bright morning sunlight, the tight walls and ceilings felt claustrophobic. Easy to be cornered, in this one-dimensional landscape. Nowhere to escape to. His hands itched for the comforting weight of his 3DM gear, but that had been confiscated long ago.

Crowds milled in the courtyards and Armin turned away at the sight of them, backtracking quickly. His throat bobbed with anxiety and the urgent need to be out of sight, safe, hidden away. As he clutched his hands to his elbows he chose a new corridor at random – anywhere to get away. The noise of the crowd retreated and Armin felt his body relax fractionally. He wondered where Mikasa slept and where she was now.

Armin stopped abruptly. Mikasa. He hadn't even considered that Hasek might try to get Mikasa as well.

Armin turned, body jerking with the movement like a rag doll, fear rattling in his chest. Why hadn't he thought of that? Of course Mikasa would be targeted. Men always watched her. Beautiful and strong, the enigmatic one with the strange, exotic eyes. And loyal to Eren. Too loyal. He'd been so used to the fact that it had always been Mikasa who'd removed himself and Eren from trouble that the thought of it being her in danger hadn't even occurred.

Armin's hands clutched at his elbows tighter, fingers digging in painfully. He needed to warn her to stay away from Whishaw. To refuse anything he offered. But what if Hasek had already got to her? What if he'd already–

Forcing his feet to move, Armin almost stumbled as he started to walk again. The air seemed colder, the walls more narrow. He'd been forbidden from speaking with Mikasa, one of the first and last orders he’d received, and he supposed she'd been told the same with regards to him. So they wouldn't try to formulate some sort of alibi for Eren, he'd supposed, and thought it fair enough if unwelcome. No one had done much to stop them talking – no guards, no chaperones, no one to intercept slipped notes and night-time meetings – but if they were caught? The last thing they needed would be any more reason for their testimonies to be mistrusted. Any more reason to doubt Eren.

But he had to warn her. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he could have stopped Hasek but didn't.

Armin cursed himself as he followed the long hallways. How could he have been so selfish, to only consider himself when Mikasa was the obvious target all along? How could he have thought for a minute that he would be satisfactory for Hasek? Small and weak and ugly–

But where was she? Mikasa, in the training camp, had typically stuck near Eren – impossible now. If not she'd often be practising technique, out alone or helping others in the training grounds. Or curled up inside, cat-like, with a book or notes to brush up on some point of theory.

Did the castle even have training grounds? If it did Armin didn’t know of any. He thought of the library he'd waited in and wondered if Mikasa had already been in there, taking down books to read, sitting in the chairs. The thought sat uncomfortably, trembling with the nauseated beat of his pulse. Could he go back? For Mikasa he would. He had to.

‘Hey!’ The shout startled Armin and he spun around, heart leaping. An older man, standing beside a closed door in an intersecting corridor, glared at him. ‘Fuck off! You know you shits aren’t allowed here,’ the man snapped. Armin turned tail and fled before anything else could be added. He felt ready to be sick, the shock breaking down what small amount of calm he'd managed to wrap around himself.

He hated this place. Despised it.

Tracing his path back Armin found himself in the familiar corridors of the new recruits’ dormitories, and stopped short in the hallway. The sound of too many people filtered out to him like a bad smell. He wanted to leave. Go back to the training camp. Go back to the slums. Anywhere but here.

No. He had to stay in control. For Mikasa.

Armin bit the inside of his lower lip, standing still. Perhaps his best bet would be to stay in the mess hall until Mikasa arrived to eat. It would only be about an hour before lunch started to be served, and no one would chase him away so long as he didn't try to queue for food before he was allowed, surely? And Mikasa had to turn up at some point, even if she ate somewhere else.

But what if he missed her in the rush? What if he was already too late?

He'd never find her if he continued to wander the corridors aimlessly. And asking where the girls slept to go find her there would only raise questions. Armin looked behind him, back to the dormitories; it sounded like the others had some sort of game going on. A card game, probably. A moment's relative quiet turned into a ragged mix of cheers and over-dramatic groans. Someone shouted something over the rest of them, their words met with laughter.

Loneliness ached, worse than any bruises, curdling with the anxiety in his gut. Armin turned and left.

The mess already had a small crowd filling it. As Armin entered the hall a small group sitting close by the door turned to look at him, their incurious eyes quickly distracted by other things. Armin still felt himself quake, feet slowing as his previous confidence drained with every step into the open. The bruises on his hands, the redness around his neck – they felt blaringly obvious. Did he walk with a limp?

It didn’t matter. For Mikasa he could live through the old, familiar humiliation. Let them think what they wanted. He wouldn’t be here for long. With the trial finished and Eren freed, none of it would matter.

Armin sat close to the wall on a bench of his own, sharp pain making him wince before he could smooth the motion away. He’d never particularly liked being in large crowds – too loud, all speaking at once, impossible to concentrate, hard to escape. Now it set his teeth on edge, muscles tensing hard enough they ached. Every conversation merged into one incomprehensible noise that seemed to grind into his skull. The thick smell of food and bodies in too little air made Armin want to gag.

When Mikasa did arrive he almost missed her. She slipped into the hall on her own, going straight to the food line, where she picked up half a loaf of bread and an apple. No plates or bowls – she would go to eat elsewhere, Armin realised as he stood. If he left now he could get ahead and intercept her in the corridor.

Getting out of the hall was a palpable relief. The prospect of talking to Mikasa should have been nerve-wracking – what if they were discovered? What if it discredited them entirely? – but soothed like a balm instead, like damp sand putting out an old fire.

The hallway outside couldn’t have been called empty by any means, but Armin hovered in a smaller corridor leading to some storerooms. She’d know to follow him to somewhere quieter. His throat felt dry with impatience.

Mikasa passed. She didn’t look at Armin – didn’t look anywhere but ahead, eyes dull, avoiding the people around her without sparing them a glance.

‘Ah–’ Armin stuttered, just as much out of shock at her lack of alertness as a need to catch her attention. Mikasa turned, stopping slowly. The questioning furrow of her brow looked like an effort.

Armin spun around and retreated down the corridor. His chest felt tight all of a sudden. For a single heady, absurd moment he didn’t want to turn around and face her.

They stopped half way between two torches, where the shadows fell thickest, and wooden doors and the smell of newly washed linen surrounded them. In the dim light Mikasa’s skin looked wan, dark bags weighing down her tired eyes. Armin clutched the hem of his shirt sleeves to stop himself fidgeting.

‘Hasek,’ Armin blurted. Mikasa frowned, but in confusion. So she hadn’t been approached, at least not yet – thank god. The weight that lifted from his shoulders felt enough to make him giddy.

‘Franz Hasek from the Military Police–’ Armin started, but his words dried up and he didn’t know how to continue. The thought that he should have considered what to say beforehand struck him as almost funny. He’d never had to do that before.

The expression on Mikasa’s face stopped him from giggling. Her frown had grown. Oh. She was staring at his neck – at the marks on his neck.

‘What happened?’ Mikasa asked, her voice steel, looking up to hold Armin’s eye. Armin faltered.

‘Are you hurt?’ Mikasa’s tone had turned cold. Furious. She glanced over the rest of him as if she could see through his clothes, not trusting his answer on the matter. ‘Who did that?’

‘No,’ Armin said weakly. Already the warmth of seeing Mikasa’s face, hearing her voice, was draining away. ‘No – I’m all right. This is the worst of it.’

Mikasa’s eyes softened. She looked so tired, Armin thought, as he reached distractedly for the right words. She knew he hadn’t answered two of her three questions but was letting him get away with it anyway.

‘Franz Hasek,’ Armin tried again. ‘He said – he wanted to–’ Stopped again. How could he say it? What was the right word?

Have sex with? Sleep with? Fuck? Rape.

The sound of approaching footsteps forced the words from his mouth. ‘He told me to sleep with him,’ Armin said, a rushed whisper. His heart thudded loudly. Mikasa had stiffened, as still as stone and just as silent.

The footsteps grew louder – they were about to be found out. Armin looked to Mikasa desperately.

‘He said if I did he’d support Eren in the trial.’ The words tumbled out – he had to get Mikasa to see. Armin stared at her face, not daring to blink. He needed to know what she thought. If she understood.

‘Did you?’ Mikasa spoke slowly, her face sliding from stiff into something new. The tone of her voice sounded foreign.

‘Yes,’ Armin said. They needed to leave, now, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from Mikasa’s. Couldn’t identify the expression there.

Mikasa nodded, a small, short gesture. She opened her mouth but for a long moment said nothing. Then: ‘Good. Thank you,’ she whispered, and Armin finally recognised her expression. It was fear, turned into relief.

Mikasa walked away without another word, disappearing around a corner moments before the two women approached from the other direction. Jerkily, Armin turned and without quite knowing his own actions opened one of the storeroom doors, staring blankly at the messy piles of sheets inside. He went in, pretending to collect an armful while waiting for the women to pass. They did, and Armin dumped the sheets, then looked down at his hands. They were shaking again, badly.

He closed the door, shutting himself in darkness. Mikasa was right, of course. He crouched down in one of the few spaces where a lack of cloth left the stone floor and walls exposed. He’d done it for Eren – which had been the whole point all along, of course. He’d almost forgotten. She’d thanked him for doing an unpleasant task in order to help save Eren’s life. Why had he expected any different?

Armin bent his head down to press into his knees, suddenly aware of how alone he was, and how quiet the castle became when not full of people. Sweaty hands and eyes had returned to stroke phantom sensation into his skin, as if they had never left. The feeling of defencelessness, sheer vulnerability, cut through his back to lodge in his spine.


	5. Chapter 5

Armin clutched his arms close around himself, chin down and fingers tucked under armpits. Cold seeped into his skin from the air.

What should he do now, other than sit tight and hope that everything worked out? What could he do? Nothing. Nothing but hope. God, he hated it.

He took his hands and rubbed them up and down his legs. His fingers felt stiff and swollen with the chill, and Hasek still wouldn’t leave him alone. The feel of pubic hair damp with sweat on the curve of his arse. Ridged thickness stretching him open. Armin pinched the inside of his thigh as hard as he could, then when the pain grew too much moved to a new spot to pinch again. Why couldn’t he get over this? What was wrong with him?

Rape happened. He knew this as simply another fact of life, like orphaned children being groomed for petty crime, or thugs extorting shopkeepers’ money for protection from their own gangs. Rumours spread like meltwater, getting everywhere no matter what you did to stop them. In the training camp most secrets were harder to avoid than come across.

Rape happened and people got over it. So why couldn’t he? Armin bit the inside of his cheek as he tried to pinch too hard and his leg jerked away of its own accord. He’d hardly been jumped, held down and beaten pliant. He’d said yes, so he couldn’t even call it rape, not really.

Why, then? Why had the world started to feel like running on wet ice?

Hasek's hands continued their journey across his skin. Armin chased them with his own hands, trying to force away the phantom sensation. Was it because he was somehow weak in the mind, that he'd let this affect him so much? But – Eren had said that he trusted him. Mikasa had always listened to his ideas and plans.

Was it his body, then? Had his physical weakness allowed Hasek to hurt him more than he would have a stronger person?

Almost without his knowing it Armin's hands settled on his crotch, resting there with only the smallest amount of pressure. He didn’t have anywhere to go, nothing to do. He was so lonely; it felt like he hadn't seen any of his friends in years. Hasek still toyed with his body, lips pressing wet kisses on the nape of his neck.

The buttons to his trousers came undone as if by someone else's hands – he could barely remember touching them – and, wriggling his hips a little, Armin pulled out his cock. Hot on his cold fingers, flaccid, not even long enough to reach past the width of his palm. He gripped it a little too hard, then relaxed his fingers. He drew his foreskin back, which tickled the head, still sensitive from the morning.

The thought of himself wanking, alone in a dark storeroom, felt ridiculous. Too embarrassing to stomach by far.

Jean had said something only a few months ago about going to get gas canisters from the storage shed, and coming across a couple – he’d been vehemently closed-mouthed when asked who, which meant that they were people he knew well. And he hadn't said what they'd been doing either, whether kissing or fucking, just turned bright red and stuttered when asked why he'd returned empty-handed.

For all his foul mouth and cocky attitude, Jean was pretty inexperienced. He'd freely admitted that much, bold-faced and daring anyone to comment. Armin thought that no matter how much Eren insulted him, Jean didn't really have a horseface. Or if he did it couldn’t be so bad. Maybe not conventionally handsome but good looking all the same. An inexperienced Jean seemed pretty weird. Jean, with his blunt charm and self-assured manner, didn't seem like the sort who couldn’t pick someone up if he put his mind to it. Perhaps he just didn't like the casualness. Perhaps he’d been lying about his lack of experience, though Jean had never been a good liar. He blushed and tended to look away rather obviously.

Jean had pretty big hands. Not Bertolt big, but big enough. Larger than his height would suggest. Armin could remember when two sets of hands were needed to set up some training apparatus or move the heavier equipment, and the difference between himself and Jean had been striking.

Armin could barely see in the dark but he could feel himself grow harder, if not fully hard. He stroked a little faster, and the way it drove out all other feeling was like cold water on the tongue after training long days in midsummer.

Jean might be inexperienced but he'd be eager all the same – not someone who'd let shyness or lack of foreknowledge fluster him. And he'd want to do things properly, wouldn't want to be known as an unskilled or inconsiderate partner, so he'd be looking at Armin's face while he used his hands or mouth. He'd pull that expression he did when he concentrated, a sort of squinting frown that made his eyes look small on his long, sharp face, but he'd grin when he saw he'd done something right. An arrogant grin, pulling up the sides of his mouth without showing much teeth.

That grin had been annoying, back before they’d got to know each other.

Jean would need some guiding, though, because he’d be going almost entirely on guesswork. Armin would have to tell him, _suck there – yes like that,_ and _further down_ , and _shit don’t use your teeth_ – and competitive Jean, seeing it as a challenge, would take each instruction and work from it to wring out every –

The sound of footsteps in the hallway outside struck like a sudden kick to the gut. Armin’s head shot up fast enough that it hit the wall behind him, his legs folding into his chest and hands flying to grip at the dusty floor. His erection died instantly.

Armin held his breath as the footsteps passed. Then, as the room fell silent again and his lungs started to protest, he let it out quickly. Even after long moments of breathing heavily he couldn’t seem to get enough air.

What had he been thinking? Armin wiped his hands on the floor, then on his legs to get rid of the dust. He tucked himself back into his trousers, and as he did up the buttons he wanted to sink into the floor. Mortification flowed through him. What was wrong with him? Why did he keep doing this?

He stood and went to the door, hovering behind it to try and hear if there were anyone on the other side. He wanted, suddenly and sharply, to get out of the room – but the thought of opening the door and having to face someone was nearly as unbearable as being stuck inside, in the dark.

First Reiner, now Jean. It wasn't as if he'd never thought about them before, because he had, and didn't everyone think about their teammates like that at least a few times? But to think about them now felt dirty, wrong, involving them in something they were better than. To think of them like that straight after what Hasek had done to him?

Armin managed to open the storeroom door and scurry out, blinking and looking to the floor as the torchlight made his eyes sting. There was something wrong with him, and it was disgusting that he dragged his friends down with him.

The corridor had emptied of people, and Armin hesitantly backtracked to the mess hall. Some still remained there, sitting around the benches to talk and play dice. Could they see what he'd been doing, written like ink into the dust that stuck to him, or in the creases of his clothes and around his eyes? He didn't feel cold any longer. Had his face gone red?

They'd stopped serving lunch, and Armin looked to the empty baskets where bread had been piled. His stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten or drunk since the previous evening.

He clenched his teeth and looked away. He'd drink some water, but he shouldn't be feeling hungry. He hadn't done any exercise. He hardly needed food for sitting about on his arse all day, and he'd been eating full meals since arriving in the palace. Why was his body so useless?

It felt like people were staring at him as he went to the tables and took a long drink of lukewarm water, but he didn't dare turn to see if they really were.

He wondered where Mikasa was now, but found he didn't want to know.

Armin walked back to the dormitories, for lack of anywhere else to go. They were still crowded – did no one here do any work? Training drills? – so he returned to sit in the corridor, looking away pointedly so not to catch anyone's eye as they passed. His hands felt empty. He wanted his book, the old one he'd had since childhood, pages thin and greasy with fingerprints. He wanted his gear to polish and check endlessly for the slightest of faults. A needle and thread to mend torn clothes. Anything.

He wanted Eren and Mikasa. He wanted Bertolt, who'd tear himself away from Reiner or his typical solitude long enough to study with Armin, late in the evening or when everyone else got too loud. He wanted Jean and Reiner – only no, he could hardly think of them right now. Not with the fantasies he'd forced on them fresh in his mind.

Eren's trial was in two days’ time. Armin thought he'd go mad with impatience before then.

Few people passed through the corridor he sat in, but they passed enough times that Armin, eyes to the floor, didn't register the newcomers’ appearance until they stopped right in front of him. Armin looked up at the pair, tilting his head back, and felt his throat tighten uncomfortably. He didn't say anything, hoping desperately that they only wanted to know something short and casual, _why are you in the hallway_ , and satisfied with the answer, _it’s too crowded inside_ , leave promptly.

They didn't. The woman, only a few years older than him with thin brown hair tied in a short ponytail and a beautiful, freckled face made sour by her expression, sat down on the opposite side of the corridor. She slouched against the wall, crossing her legs with a petulant finality. The man, a few years older again, handsome and thin with curling black hair and round dark eyes like puddles of water, hesitated before kneeling beside her.

‘You're Arlert, right,’ the woman said, more of a statement than any sort of question. Armin nodded as anxiety twisted up his guts. He didn't remember the names of either, though he recognised the man as one of those in the dormitory he’d been assigned to. What did they want?

‘I, um,’ the man said, softly and with a keen sense of embarrassment in his eyes. ‘I'm sorry to assume, and – sorry if it's offensive – I honestly don't mean to be, but are you all right?’

It wasn't what Armin had expected. He opened his mouth a tiny fraction and couldn't find the words to reply with. So they knew what he'd agreed upon with Hasek. Oh, god –

‘Just say if we're wrong,’ the woman said. ‘But it's not like you'll get lynched for it or anything. They all make you swear secrecy, but no one would give two fucks if you wrote a fucking ballad about it, names and all.’

‘Only,’ the man continued, ‘when you didn't get back last night, and – I swear I wasn't listening, but I'm on the bunk above you – I could hear. You know. And today you weren't around for breakfast or lunch. It was you who used up half the water this morning, right? Not that that's bad – obviously – just, it's noticeable.’

‘We're not stalking you or anything, don't worry,’ the woman said. Their sentences seemed to run together until it felt like they were reading alternating lines from a well-learnt script. Armin's fists pushed against the floor as if it could stop the world as it tilted on its axis. ‘But bugger all happens around here, so any new stuff is pretty obvious. Pair that with a cute face like yours and it hardly takes a genius to figure things out.’

‘I –’ Armin managed, and stopped. He still couldn't understand what they wanted from him. ‘I don't know your names,’ he ended up saying, and regretted it instantly as an inane, stupid thing to say.

‘Oh! Sorry – I'm Eleftherios,’ the man said with a weak grin. ‘I guess remembering all of us would be pretty hard.’

‘Andrea,’ the woman offered.

They sat in silence while three men passed between them down the corridor, chatting amiably. Armin returned to staring at his feet, painfully aware of the two pairs of eyes watching him. If they’d been honest and Hasek, and others like Hasek, did this often – he didn’t know what to think. Relief that it hadn’t been him who’d made Hasek do it. That it wasn’t something in him that would make a person a rapist. Anger, that it happened and people let it happen. And fear – a gut-wrenching, stupefying fear – that it happened, and people let it happen.

‘You don’t need to say anything,’ Eleftherios said once they were alone again. ‘It’s none of our business. But, in case you wanted to talk or anything. You’ll be gone after the trial, right? Yeager’s trial, I mean.’

‘Yes,’ Armin whispered. Then: ‘Nothing happened last night. You're – you misunderstood.’

A short silence followed that, and Armin didn’t look up to see the expressions to match it. His heart thudded, a pulse that refused to be ignored. Because Hasek had told him not to speak of it, and though he trusted Mikasa not to say or give anything away, these were strangers. For all that he believed them, and wanted to believe them, he had to assume that they worked for Hasek. That they'd been ordered to find out just how well he kept his secrets.

‘Oh,’ Eleftherios said. Was that sad, embarrassed resignation in his tone, or disappointment? ‘Sorry.’

Andrea exhaled, short and sharp, but her eyes had softened. ‘Well now you know,’ she said, obvious that she hadn’t believed him for a second. ‘Just try to stick around others. Obviously it won’t stop them if they really want you, but it can help. And I don’t know what it’s like in the Scouting Corps, but here they like ‘em pretty.’ She paused, sucking at her front teeth, and Armin froze. Of course, who else would Hasek entrust his secret to? Both Andrea and Eleftherios were very pretty. ‘It gets easier, after a few times. Depends on who, but yeah. It gets easier.’

They waited a moment. Armin didn’t speak or look up, and eventually they left. The relief at being alone again felt like being able to breathe after diving too deep underwater.

It got easier after a few times, then? Armin wrapped his arms around himself and took their advice, because even being alone couldn’t justify the constant fear of looking down a corridor and imagining Whishaw stalk towards him, smile on his face.

He thought he’d go mad before it, but the days passed, mind-numbing in their anxious monotony, and Eren’s trial arrived. Armin obeyed the orders of where to stand, and how to stand, and how to not do anything unless specifically told to, as if in a dream that couldn’t decide whether it would become a nightmare or not. In the courtroom, standing in the front row by Mikasa, Armin felt the crowd press around him. He could barely look at Eren, kneeling and chained like a criminal, hair greasy, squinting in the light. He could barely look past him to where the Military Police stood, Franz Hasek in the row second from front.

Hasek didn’t so much as glance his way. Eren did, but his fearful expression gave Armin no comfort.

The trial commenced. People spoke but Armin could barely hear, barely understand. Sweat collected in the creases of his palm and dampened the armpits of his shirt. He felt nauseated, stomach cramping. What if everything went wrong? What if they had Eren executed, right here and now? So many soldiers held guns. Mikasa spoke, and Armin marvelled abstractedly at how controlled she kept her voice. His own breath rushed, harried, his heartbeat the knock-knock of a sloppy carpenter’s hammer.

People started to shout and Armin wanted to crouch down with his hands over his head. He needed to support Eren but didn’t know how.

In the end it didn’t matter. Eren would go to the Scouting Corps, and in the wake of that judgement Armin shuddered, washed out, his body drained empty from the sheer trembling relief of it.

Outside the courtroom he got caught up in the mill of people, standing to share the news, laugh or fear for the safety of their family. Mikasa wanted to talk, that much was obvious in the way she looked to him, but Armin turned away and she didn’t follow. From respect? Or did she have better things to do? He didn’t care. For now, just for a while, he could pretend that everything would go back to normal. That it’d all be okay. Because Eren wouldn’t be executed.

Armin had walked half way back to the dormitories before he realised that not once had Hasek spoken.

And yet, Eren would go to the Survey Corps. Hasek had lied; everything Armin had done had been for nothing, and he grinned until his mouth felt ready to split open. He laughed wet, sobbing laughs, hollow and giddy, and couldn’t find it within himself to care.


	6. Chapter 6

Marco was dead. Armin didn’t find out until the day after returning to the others as they waited to choose their legions, still licking their private wounds.

It seemed that no one was safe, not even after the battle had finished. Armin drifted, keeping away from the others and letting Mikasa relay the truth about Eren. He thought he should mourn but didn’t really know how. Despite so many familiar faces it didn’t feel like home – not like the training barracks had, or even the slums had, after a time. Nothing sat right, the world a dream or ugly mirror image.

Armin knew he should be happy – Eren would not be executed. But he couldn’t manage it.

So many had died, their prominent absence filling up the spaces. People went from ignoring it to speaking of it tirelessly, like they could drain away the loss as easily as rinsing dishes. Jean sat alone, too quiet, withdrawn and blank-eyed. In compensation Connie spoke too loudly, cheer turned to aggressive desperation. Krista snapped when Ymir refused to leave her alone, their ensuing argument bitter, not friendly, ending in hateful tears. Armin might have turned to Bertolt to sit under his quiet, familiar shadow, but Bertolt was inevitably hidden away with Reiner, never leaving his side.

Armin envied them both. The ease of familiarity between them, fitting together as comfortably as pages in a book, stirred up jealousy in him.

How were they partners? Did they call it friendship, or love, or something else? Would Bertolt be offended if he knew how Armin had thought of Reiner – when he’d thought of Reiner?

Did they sit in silence? Did they talk of their home village, happy childhoods, lost friends? Did they plan for the future? Or did they fuck, hungry for life and sick of mourning?

Armin hid and couldn’t stop thinking about them. Did they ever think of him? Probably not. Reiner and Bertolt. Why could they remain together when Eren had left him? Reiner and Bertolt. Why couldn’t it be Eren and Armin who were the pages fitting perfectly, always together?

Armin avoided Mikasa, who had yet to give up trying to talk to him alone. He wanted to speak to her. No. He wanted to hear her take back what she’d said – wanted her to say she was wrong and Hasek was wrong. Wanted her to apologise, except he didn’t because Mikasa didn’t apologise, and certainly not when she wasn’t wrong to begin with, and he knew she wasn’t. What did he want from her, then? Without anyone to ground him his thoughts spiralled, unravelling into incoherency, but with no point of reference he didn’t know how to put them all back together.

He wanted to go back in time to when things hadn’t become so complicated, and frightening. He wanted time to hurry up so he could go and join Eren in the Scouting Corps.

He wanted Eren.

Days passed agonisingly slowly. It was only after the inspection, when news came of Hange’s experiment titans having been killed and Armin couldn’t understand – didn’t want to understand – why Annie had Marco’s 3DM gear, that Mikasa finally cornered him.

She stood in front of the door, and in the dark Armin didn’t see her as he hurried across the courtyard, hating the exposure of the wide-open space. When he looked up and their eyes met Armin’s mouth twisted into a smile, muscle memory, that faltered in trepidation. Mikasa had been his friend, defended and supported him, listened to his dreams without hating him for a heretic, for so many years now. Why did the prospect of speaking with her make his chest tight with fear?

‘Can we talk?’ Mikasa asked. Her dark eyes pinned his, then looked to the side. She took a step away from the doorway, no longer blocking his path.

The simple movement released something, and suddenly Armin could breathe. It was Mikasa. Just Mikasa.

‘Yeah,’ he said, and they fell into step as they walked back into the dark courtyard, stopping by the stables, far out of earshot of any casual eavesdroppers. The horses shuffled and breathed heavily in their dark stalls.

‘Armin,’ Mikasa started, turning to him. The shadows turned her face into a pale smear and her words were comfortingly blunt. Honest. ‘What I said back when you told me, what you’d done – I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’

Unable to think of a proper response Armin looked at the ground, then sat down with his back to the wall and knees brought up to his chest. He’d wanted this apology, hadn’t he? Nothing felt any different now that he’d heard it.

After a moment Mikasa sat down next to him, mirroring his pose, two feet of empty space between them. Only a show, Armin knew – Mikasa could move fast enough that the two feet held no more safety than if she’d sat with her hands around his neck.

He didn’t know what to say. Should he tell her the whole story? Should he say there was no need to apologise, since she hadn’t said anything other than the truth in the first place? That he’d done it for Eren, and he’d do it again? Should he act brave?

‘It’s all right,’ Armin muttered, tongue clumsy.

‘It’s not,’ Mikasa said, vehemently, then checked herself. ‘I – I can’t take back the sentiment. If it saved Eren, if it had even the smallest chance of saving him, I won’t take it back. But I wish he’d asked me instead.’

As soon as she said it, for a split second, Armin realised that he wished it too. How much easier it would be, to only have to feel bad for someone else.

Then he caught himself and the guilt shook him. How could he think that? What kind of person was he that he wished his childhood friend, one of the two he loved most in the world, had been raped?

Armin floundered. He should object. He should tell Mikasa that she shouldn’t say that sort of thing. That he was glad he’d done it and not anyone else. But he knew, in that split second, that he’d waited too long and now it was too late. The silence between them stretched pointedly and every added moment made his words more and more meaningless.

‘We used to be such good friends.’

Armin startled, looking up from the ground.

‘It’s all changed, hasn’t it,’ Mikasa said, low and raw. ‘We hardly speak. I used to love listening to you. For hours on end, I could just lie there and listen. About outside. About anything. But now? The last time we talked I told you I was glad you were raped by that pig-filth bastard, and you let me.

‘I wish it could go back to how it was,’ she said.

Armin looked at Mikasa, who didn’t look back. She faced out into the dark courtyard; her eyes looked like they were pressed closed, but Armin couldn’t quite see in the dark. When was the last time he’d heard her voice regret?

‘Yeah,’ he whispered, finally. ‘I wish that too.’

They didn’t say anything more after that. Somewhere in the distance a fox yapped, then went quiet. They should go back, Armin thought, in case anyone caught them out after curfew. He tried to think about what Mikasa had said, but couldn’t quite knit the threads together to make it coherent.

After some time Mikasa stretched out her legs and stood. She hesitated, then offered a hand down. Another moment of hesitation, and Armin took it.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Mikasa said as they stood, not quite ready to leave yet. ‘Have you told anyone else?’

‘There were some, in the Military Police, who suspected... I don’t think it was that hard to guess. They said it happens there. I haven’t told anyone, other than you.’

‘Will you tell Eren?’ Mikasa spoke without accusation.

‘I–’ Armin paused, gathering his words. They had to be correct, for this. He needed to know what Mikasa really thought. ‘I don’t know. On one hand Eren’s got so much to worry about already. He’ll feel guilty, as if it were his fault and not Hasek’s. But – is this one of those lies that gets worse with time? If he finds out a month from now, or five months... a year on. He’ll be angry. How will we be able to say that we still trust him, if we’ve been lying to him all that time? Will he trust us in other things, if he finds out?

‘For Eren, I think it would be better not to tell him. Not now, anyway. But – I don’t want there to be secrets like this between us, and risk our friendship. For myself, I want to tell him. I suppose I’m just being selfish in that respect.’ Armin laughed then, shaky and without humour. ‘Still, even if I am selfish, I think I’m too frightened to tell him. That probably makes me a bad friend, doesn’t it? If I don’t say anything because I’m too scared to, and not because that’s what’s best for him.’

Armin couldn’t read Mikasa’s expression in the dark. He could feel his heart beat in his chest, hard and fast, and he looked away, back to the small, irregular lights of windows across the courtyard.

‘Do you want me to tell him? He’s not stupid, he’ll realise something has happened,’ she said, tone almost forcefully mild.

‘I know,’ Armin said, then fell silent. After a while he added: ‘We should get back.’ He couldn’t quite steady his breathing as he waited for Mikasa to push her unanswered question, even when she didn’t and they walked back side by side, slipping into their separate dormitories with faint, unremarkable good-nights.

As he lay on his hard mattress, curled up in the scratchy sheets, Armin listened to the yammering of his heart. He thought back to Reiner and Bertolt, sleeping across the room from him. He thought of Eren.


	7. Chapter 7

In the end, being with Eren again felt like slipping into old clothes. The knowledge that Eren held the power to harness the form of a titan sat in the back of the mind, but then so did the knowledge that they were in the Scouting Corps now, with a life expectancy of only a year or two more, if that. So did the thought of Hasek, back within Wall Sina, so far away. Almost too easy to overlook in the daytime, when more immediate things had priority.

Training resumed – new instructors with new routines, new headquarters, a new chore rota, shrugging off training days with strange finality. Armin settled into it uncomplaining, working hard but with the uncomfortable feeling that hard would not be good enough. He didn’t want to die – not so young, not without seeing the outside world – but the prospect seemed more and more likely every day. He still needed to speak with Eren.

They didn’t have a lot of time together, and as of yet none alone. But Armin knew he could wait, at least a little while. The next expedition, the next time they all gambled long odds with death, gave him a little under a month. Just so long as he didn’t die in a training accident, he thought with grim amusement.

Armin wanted Eren – that much was obvious now. Armin wanted Eren's skin, naked and flushed, all of it. He wanted Eren's mouth, and green eyes, and brown hair damp with sweat. He wanted Eren's cock in his hands.

It had to be wrong. So soon after Hasek? To come from nowhere? Armin knew its grossness, recognising it with an acceptance that sunk in his stomach, weighing him down. But he still couldn't stop.

Mikasa was wrong on her assumption that Eren would realise, it seemed – he remained oblivious despite her and Armin’s every small change in behaviour. She tried to sit with Armin at meal times, holding back in training to watch him like an overinvested parent watching their clumsy child at play, and single him out to help with his chores. She ignored the way Armin hated it – hated the eyes on his back and the way it made him nervous, and the nervousness making him weak. It seemed almost obnoxious in how blaringly obvious it was, but Eren still didn’t notice. Armin stared at him in the baths when he was looking the other way, unable not to see how Eren’s skin had smoothed out all his old scars, and how his muscles continued to grow. Was Eren that unobservant? Or was Armin just unimportant to him?

Did the others see? Jean remained morose, Sasha and Connie ever unperceptive, but what about Reiner and Bertolt? Ymir probably saw but she could be trusted not to comment. Krista, on the other hand, not so much. Armin retreated into study, picking at the memory of Annie. He closed his eyes and thought of Eren. Had he always liked Eren in that way? He didn't know. He didn't think so. There must be something wrong with him but that was fine. Eren would accept him, wrong or not, because Eren remained loyal. Loyal, just unobservant.

The situation finally presented itself a week after arrival, with Eren and Armin free the whole evening and night and Mikasa on guard duty for the first watch. Eren was in a good mood and Armin didn't hurt too much from the battering of the day’s training. They'd eaten, and, holding him in a conversation about the possible origins of the castle headquarters, with Eren going on an enthusiastic tangent about how hard cleaning algae from the ceilings was, Armin managed to separate the two of them from the others without any suspicion.

As he led Eren away, walking slowly and keeping him talking, Armin's gut seemed to twist with anticipation. His throat felt tight. What if this went badly? What if he'd misjudged the situation? What if whatever was wrong with him spread to Eren, like a disease? But he couldn’t stop now.

‘Oi, Armin,’ Eren said, after a pause in the conversation. ‘Where're we going?’

He didn't sound suspicious, only mildly curious. A little confused, but like it didn't really matter either way. In this part of the castle the rooms were spare and left empty, or filled with old things deemed too valuable to discard but that didn't belong anywhere else.

Armin didn't answer, instead humming a vague noise to show that he'd heard. They shouldn't really be here, but no one cared enough to bother enforcing such boundaries. Still, the anticipation of being caught sat uncomfortable and tight in his chest. Or perhaps that tightness was something else. Armin fisted the hem of his shirt in his hands, then forced himself to let go.

‘Armin?’ Eren didn't stop following, didn't ask with anything other than entirely trusting curiosity in his voice.

‘Uhm,’ Armin said, and just a little further, the room he'd found days ago was just a little further. ‘Hold on...’

Eren didn't protest, though he looked around in renewed interest at the blank stone walls and boring windows showing the same scenery they'd been looking at since arriving. Then they were in front of the door, Armin pushing it open and breathing a small, silent breath of relief that nothing had been changed – still nothing but rickety benches and mould-spotted curtains. No one had intruded.

He closed the old door behind them, rotting around the edges but still sturdy, and turned to Eren. His heart beat fast in his throat. Eren looked at him in frank, uncomprehending confusion.

Armin reached up and put a hand around the back of Eren's head, letting the warmth sit in his palm and the scruffy, tangled hair shift between his fingers. Then he leant up, closed his eyes, and kissed him.

Armin didn't know how to kiss. He'd never done it before – at least, not the sort of kiss which wasn’t a peck on the cheek by a parent. His lips remained closed, pressed tight against Eren's own chapped lips. He was aware that his eyes had shut, brows furrowing down, like an exaggerated wince. He tried to relax his face, but couldn’t. Their noses mashed together. Eren had frozen, holding his breath, and Armin felt suddenly and horribly self-aware. What was he meant to do now? He'd seen others kiss, and they'd always seemed to enjoy it. What pleasure there was in being so close to Eren didn't nearly make up for the sheer awkwardness of everything else. Should he open his mouth? Do something with his tongue? Was it him that made kissing, an otherwise enjoyable task, so unpleasant?

Eren leant away and Armin let him, keeping his eyes closed and letting his hands fall. He didn't want to see. Eren would look disgusted. Please just let him walk out, Armin thought, and not say anything.

If Eren walked out now, some small part of Armin whispered, it would be fine, this was expected, Eren would just go to Mikasa and she would tell him what had happened. And Eren would feel guilty, so that next time–

Hands slipped around his waist, and taken by surprise Armin opened his eyes. Eren kissed him, no better than their previous kiss in any practical or real way – their noses still squashed into each other, faces held still, and there had to be some movement and opening of the lips, but how did that work? Eren's breath smelt stale, layered over with the leek and potatoes they'd eaten that evening. But Eren had kissed him, willingly, right away, and Armin's heart felt like it swelled to the point of painfulness.

Armin reached behind himself and took Eren's hands in his own, holding them tight between their chests. He tilted his face at an angle to solve the issue of their noses. Eren opened his mouth, perhaps to say something, and Armin took that opportunity to lick his tongue across the tip of Eren's.

It felt wet, hot and squishy. Eren's tongue tasted worse than his breath smelt. There was a build-up of some pressure under his ribs, yet his head felt light, like a blood rush or sudden, sharp realisation. Armin couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of his throat, short and disbelieving.

‘What?’ Eren said, defensively, and Armin only leant up to kiss him again, pushing Eren back until his legs bumped against the side of a bench. Hands on his shoulders, Armin shoved Eren down, sitting in his lap with a bravado he had no idea had existed before. Eren let himself be manhandled, hands on Armin’s hips as they kissed, inelegant.

There was heat pooling in his lower belly, a coiled tension. Armin ground down into Eren’s lap and grinned at the ragged gasp it produced. He wanted to hear that again, knowing it was him who’d pulled it from Eren, him and his body that made Eren like this.

The kisses had become better – still wet, over eagerness making them a little too sloppy, and between them Armin couldn’t quite manage the proper rhythm of breathing – but Eren rose to meet him, melting under him, and the contact felt like waking up from restless half-sleep. Armin pulled back anyway, taking Eren’s hands in his own to place purposefully on the edge of the bench.

Then Armin slid to kneel on the ground. His heart hammered, hands shaking. He didn’t quite know what he should be doing as he undid the buckles of Eren’s belt straps, not daring to look up to see the expression on his face. The vague knowledge of the theory of this sat in the front of his mind, trying to mesh with the assumptions from his own experience. Eren’s hands remained gripping the bench, hard enough it looked like he wanted to break it into pieces. When Armin undid the buttons to Eren’s trousers he could feel heat and hardness through the thick material, the sensation coating his fingers like oil.

He pulled Eren out from his trousers, red and hard and veined, appearing massive from so close up. Armin opened his mouth but couldn’t lower his head any closer. The scent of arousal and faint piss coated his tongue and the back of his throat.

‘Armin,’ Eren groaned from above his head. His cock bobbed of its own accord, stimulated from Armin’s choppy breath. ‘Fuck–’

He had to do it. He couldn't stop now. Armin leant down the few centimetres and took Eren's cock in his mouth, careful to mould his lips and tongue around the head. The taste of it was vaguely foul, the weight of it inescapable, foreign and unwelcome. Should he avoid touching it with his teeth? What should he do now?

Eren's hands appearing on his shoulders made him jolt in surprise. His eyes closed; he could feel them start to water, the panic swelling up in his chest. Then Eren put one hand on the back of his head, fingers combing through his hair. It didn't push or grasp, only rested there. The urge to shake it off, to take away his head, felt like a physical pressure behind his eyes. Armin sucked in air around Eren's cock – his nose had become blocked, not allowing enough room to fill his lungs. Above him Eren swore around the fumbled begging of his name.

Armin swallowed, ever careful around the fatness between his lips. He couldn't even do this. He didn't know what he was doing. But he had to.

He grasped the base of Eren's cock in one hand, dipping his head down to take more into his mouth. His jaw ached, and saliva pooled below his tongue to start dribbling out down his chin. The heavy, hot feel of Eren brushing his soft palate made him want to gag. He didn't let himself, withdrawing a little to suck on the head, pushing down the foreskin with his lips to expose it fully.

Eren moaned unashamedly, his hands tightening their grips convulsively. His hips jerked forwards, tiny amounts that still seemed to be just shy of too much. His legs curled around Armin's back, and Armin whined through his nose at the confining strength of them.

He couldn’t tell how long he'd been kneeling there for, but knew rationally that it wasn't long before Eren's hand on his shoulder disappeared abruptly and a muffled shout was his only warning before Eren came.

Armin gagged, swallowing some of the salty liquid reflexively, before he leant back out of Eren's grip and coughed out the rest, spitting it onto the floor. He wiped his lips and chin with his jacket sleeve, still facing down, away from Eren's eyes. Then he spat out some more, trying to clear the taste from his throat. His insides seemed to be shivering.

‘Armin?’ Eren sounded anxious, breathing heavily. ‘Armin? Sorry, I shouldn't have – are you okay?’

Armin wiped his mouth again and as he looked up he smiled, because it was fine. This was Eren, flushed and sweating and green eyes mixed up with care and stupid happiness. It was Eren like this, and Armin who'd done it to him.

‘I'm fine,’ he said, and grinned shakily up at Eren's obvious relief. He made to stand, but before he could manage it Eren nudged him back to sit down on the floor in front of him. Eren grinned a wide, sloppy grin, and the sight of it was enough to make Armin's own grin that much wider, curling up natural and unnoticed.

He leant in to kiss Eren again. Eren blinked and leant away at the last second, so that the kiss landed on the edge of his lips. ‘Hey, wait,’ he said, still smiling but with an added flustered air. ‘Not when you just – I mean, that's kind of gross, right? When you've got–’ he mimed badly, one hand in front of his mouth and the other at his crotch, where his limp cock still hung, wet and sticky with saliva.

Armin giggled and kissed Eren on the cheek, closed-mouthed. ‘I guess,’ he said, not finding it within himself to admit that he didn't really understand the sentiment. He felt tired, and let his head drop down onto Eren's shoulder.

The pressure at his own belt made him jerk upright. Eren froze, fingers falling still where they touched Armin's gear buckles.

‘No!’ Armin blurted, and regretted it instantly. Eren withdrew his hands as if he were burnt, hurt and confusion playing across his face.

‘You don't...?’ he said, hesitantly, trailing off.

Armin shook his head, trying to bring back the smile that had disappeared entirely. It felt ugly and awkward on his face. ‘No,’ he echoed, searching desperately for a good-enough excuse and not finding one. What could he say when he didn't know himself? He'd been hard, back when they'd been kissing, he knew it. His erection had withered away entirely while he’d had Eren’s cock in his mouth. Was it that? Could he say he just didn’t want Eren to know he hadn't been turned on? Was that the truth, or was there something else instead he couldn’t quite grasp?

‘Why?’ Eren asked. The redness of his blush had mostly gone, his breathing back to normal. ‘I don't mind, you did it for me so it's only fair. It's not like we haven't seen each other before. And – I want to. I'm sorry if I did something wrong, just tell me what and I won't do it again. I didn't hurt you, did I?’

‘It's fine,’ Armin cut in. He looked away, at the old discarded furniture and the slowly darkening sky outside the window, feeling self-conscious and utterly ridiculous. The romance had gone and he was just another stupid child breaking curfew to get his rocks off. What had he been thinking?

Eren didn't seem to know what to say. He tucked himself back into his trousers silently, then they sat there for a little longer. They really ought to get back before anyone noticed they were gone, Armin thought. He didn't think he had the energy to move.

‘You don't regret it, do you?’ Eren said, after a long time. ‘I'm sorry.’

‘No,’ Armin managed to whisper. ‘No, you didn't do anything wrong. And I don't regret it. I still want you.’ He got up on his knees and shuffled close to Eren, straddling his thighs so they were close enough to kiss easily. It only took a split second before Eren accepted the kiss, opening his mouth and sucking gently on the tip of Armin's tongue. His hands went to Armin's hips, dragging upwards to encircle his waist. Armin flinched but Eren didn't seem to notice.

‘We should get back,’ Eren muttered as they broke apart, though he made no attempt at moving. Armin hummed noncommittally and kissed Eren again, feeling oddly calmed by the warm, close sensation. As much as it had been awful to begin with, at least kissing well was a skill they seemed to have learnt fast.

‘Next time, will you let-’ Eren said, then hesitated. ‘I mean, if you want to carry on being with me.’

‘You can’t get rid of me that easily,’ Armin said, a shaky joke, and the grin that split Eren’s mouth forced Armin’s lips up into a mirror of the expression. He stood a little awkwardly and reached down to grab Eren’s hand, pulling him up. ‘We should be going,’ he said.

The next day Armin didn’t see much of Eren. At breakfast they smiled at each other, like exchanging a wordless secret, then Eren went off to where he trained and experimented with his titan form under the command of Captain Levi and Squad Leader Hange, and Armin went with the rest of them to regular training. They’d been split into different lunch shifts, and by dinner both were too exhausted to do much but sit next to each other as they ate, not bold enough to hold hands in front of Mikasa and the others. Armin picked at his food, appetite lost.

It was good, he told himself that night as he tried and failed to drift off, warming his elbows, which ached from a bad fall, with the palms of his hands. Eren wanted to be with him. Eren hadn’t been executed. It had all worked out. He still couldn’t stop the smile from dropping from his face, pressed into the thin duvet, or the shaky, cold loneliness that swelled in his chest. He should be happy; why wasn’t he? What was wrong?

Armin woke late the next morning, and would have slept later had Reiner not shaken him awake by the shoulder.

‘Hey,’ he said, mild concern written into his large face. Armin blinked up at him groggily. ‘You’re going to miss breakfast if you don’t hurry.’

‘Oh,’ Armin said, and sat up. The dormitories were empty save for the two of them. ‘Thank you,’ he added, as he shuffled out of bed to get changed.

As soon as Reiner left Armin dawdled, taking his time to make his bed and put on his gear. Hunger bit in his stomach but he didn’t feel like eating. He should go down anyway – he was thirsty, and Eren would be wondering where he was. Maybe if he waited long enough he could get a drink but manage to avoid everyone else. Would Eren even wait for him, though? Perhaps he had a different morning timetable that meant he couldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t bother waiting either way.

Armin ended up delaying too long, and found himself jogging to the stables straight from the dormitories. He should just manage to arrive on time, if he was lucky. He cursed himself for his lack of timekeeping. What had he been thinking?

Half-way there and Armin slowed to a hasty stop. Eren was walking toward him, and when their eyes met neither smiled. Eren faltered, glancing to the side as if looking for a way out. ‘Armin,’ he said, voice dry, withered, and Armin’s heart plummeted. Oh. So he knew, then. What else could it be, to make Eren look at him like that? Mikasa had told him. He didn’t look guilty – he looked horrified. Disgusted.

‘I need to go,’ Armin said, the first thing he could think of, and made his legs move to walk past Eren and on to the stables. Eren didn’t stop him, and Armin couldn’t decide whether to be glad or not. He couldn’t remove Eren’s expression from his mind’s eye, stricken and accusing all at once. It wasn't supposed to have gone like that. Eren should have pushed him away before he knew, not after. Armin reached the stables, unable to be glad that he’d made it on time, and taking a horse he tacked it up with unsteady hands. He knew Mikasa was on his side, now, but that hardly mattered – it had all gone wrong. It was her fault. Only no – it was him, he was the one Eren didn’t want. He was the one who couldn’t make Eren want him.

What was he worth, if he couldn’t fight or use his brain? Who wanted a soldier who was both weak and stupid?

The summer sun was bright but it felt very distant, lacking heat.

Training slowly degenerated into gentle torture as he failed again and again to take off and land on horseback. Armin’s head hurt fiercely. His whole body felt weak. His thirst only grew but he didn’t want to drink. The instructor shouted at him as he forgot all the advice and directions previously given. He could feel the other’s irritation on his skin as he held back the entire unit.

They broke for lunch after what felt like a small eternity, and Armin stood in the shade of a tree away from the others. His skin was cold from sweat. His legs felt boneless; he couldn’t feel his fingers or catch his breath. He didn’t hear Mikasa as she approached, canteen in hand.

‘Drink or you’ll get ill,’ she said, and Armin looked up at her slowly. He shook his head.

‘Why did you tell him?’ he asked instead, even though he already knew. He clutched his arms around himself as Mikasa hesitated.

‘I thought you wanted him to know,’ she said, unsure, before taking a step closer and offering the water canteen again. ‘You need to drink.’

‘He didn’t–’ Armin tried. ‘It didn’t go right.’

Mikasa twisted open the lid and pressed the mouth to Armin’s lips. Cold water spilt down his chin, and mechanically he took hold of the canteen to drink, faster and faster, unable to stop once he’d started. ‘Slow down,’ Mikasa warned, but he didn’t care.

One of the last gulps went the wrong way, burning down into his lungs. Armin hacked, coughing and spluttering as he dropped the canteen onto the dirt. Then he bent over and vomited, warm water dotted with strings and globules of partly digested food. After the rush of water nothing more came up but phlegm, but he couldn’t stop retching.

His throat felt scalded, ribs aching and exhausted with the dry heaves. Armin kept expecting Mikasa’s hand on his back, like she’d done so many times before, anticipating the weight to better shrug it off. It never came. Mikasa crouched next to him, a respectful distance, and kept her hands to herself.


	8. Chapter 8

‘He’s angry with you,’ Mikasa had said. ‘And himself.’  
  
That was three days ago. Armin found Eren alone for the first time since then as he walked to the hall for a theory lecture, seeing him up ahead in the corridor.  
  
His throat stuck with Eren's name in it, the sound too hard to make out. Armin's hands clenched into nervous fists. He'd thought about what he needed to say – over and over, reciting the conversations like digging in the fields with bare hands. He’d picked at the outcomes like picking out stones from the dirt, all shapes and sizes, turning the skin on his fingers hard and thick. What could he say? What would make Eren see?  
  
‘He's angry with you.’ Mikasa's voice rang in his head and wouldn't stop.  
  
‘Eren,’ Armin called, and hurried the metres between them to catch up. ‘We need to speak.’  
  
‘Yeah? What if I don't want to?’ Eren's face was stony, closed, but only just. He turned away and Armin grabbed his wrist.  
  
‘Let go,’ Eren hissed, shaking Armin off easily. He looked away, jaw clenched, and made to carry on walking.  
  
‘Eren!’ Armin snapped. ‘Stop acting like you're the victim here!’  
  
Eren tensed like Armin knew he would, freezing still and hard. Armin took the opportunity to grab Eren's wrist again, similar to but not really holding hands at all. There wasn’t time to draw this out, or dance around the topic. Eren would only be irritated by anything but bluntness.  
  
‘Eren,’ he said. ‘What I did, it was to save you. Back in Trost, don't you remember? When you pulled me from that titan's mouth and got swallowed instead? That's no different, or if it is, it's worse because you should have died. Don't you see?’  
  
‘It’s not-’ Eren began, but slow enough that Armin spoke over him, cutting him off.  
  
‘So with Hasek – you wouldn’t have done it for me?’ he said, and watched Eren flinch minutely. ‘If it'd been the other way round and he'd asked you instead, you’d have said no? To save me?’  
  
‘What kind of stupid question is that?’ Eren snapped.  
  
‘Would you want me to hate you for it, then?’  
  
‘I don't hate you!’ Eren turned to fully face Armin for the first time. His voice was vehement, then it faltered. ‘I just – I – why did you have to, afterwards? When you, you know. Why? It wasn't because you actually wanted me. It was a rebound thing or something, you wanted to get back at me, I don't know –’  
  
‘Do you really think I'd do that to you?’  
  
‘Why then?’ Eren's voice was getting desperate, and loud. ‘You never wanted me before.’  
  
Armin shook his head. He couldn’t stop thinking that at any moment someone could interrupt them. Standing directly in front of Eren, looking up at him straight in the eye, he let earnestness bleed into his voice.  
  
‘Eren, listen to me. You know what the survival rate of the Survey Corps is. Even less for people like me. No, let me finish. You being what you are means you’ll survive, but I probably won't and if I do, what about the next expedition, or the one after that? At best I'm only ever going to live another year or two. In Trost – we were so confident and look what happened. And it's not that I just don't want him to be my only experience.’  
  
His words picked up pace without him meaning them to, but he couldn’t slow down. ‘I do want you. I like you, Eren, and trust you. It’s just that I only realised how little time I have left.’  
  
He finished in a rush of breath. Armin could feel sweat prickle cold on his skin, his blood pumping hot beneath. What would Eren do? Would he argue? He shouldn’t, but what if he did?  
  
Eren didn’t argue. He looked away, mouth thin and eyes tight. ‘We should go or we’ll be late,’ he said after a long pause, and before Armin could reply he stepped back, walking away.  
  
Armin sat far away from him in the lecture, next to Bertolt, who looked down at him nervously but didn’t say anything.  
  
That evening Armin pointedly did not look at Eren as they sat in the mess and ate, though he itched to. What was Eren thinking? Was he speaking to anyone? Eren needed space – interruption would only make him angry, set him off before he could reach the natural conclusion, but... Armin ate without tasting. He wanted Eren to decide now.  
  
For the first time, the thought of how few days he had left gnawed at his mind. He’d known it before – why did it bother him now?  
  
The next morning, on laundry duty, Armin dawdled as they finished up. Was half a day enough for Eren to decide?  
  
Eren didn’t approach him but walked off with Reiner and Bertolt, heading straight to the training fields.  
  
They weren’t on the same lunch shift. Dinner progressed the same as the last.  
  
What if what he’d said wasn’t enough? What if Eren just didn’t ever forgive him?  
  
Eren approached him, finally, the day after, late at night. Too dark in the lonely corridor to see properly, Armin jumped as he heard the footsteps close behind him, turning and bursting out in embarrassed laughter as he saw who it was. The memory of just why he wanted talk to Eren cut the laughter short.  
  
‘Armin,’ Eren started, hard and unsure. ‘I'm sorry. What I said, I didn't mean it. If – if you did want us to be together I wouldn't mind. I’d like it. And–’ Eren stopped, hesitating before starting again, making up for the lost time with sincere harshness. ‘You won't die. I don't care what the stupid statistics are, I'll defend you. And Mikasa will look out for you. You won't die.’  
  
Armin shook his head but couldn't bear to argue. His mouth had split into a grin that wouldn't leave. His heart beat heavy, fast, his head light with relief. He'd done it. Eren was still his.  
  
Armin couldn't really see Eren's expression in the shadows, but he didn't care. He stepped forward and with his hands on the back of Eren's head, hair tangled and peppered with dirt, Armin pulled him down into a kiss.  
  
Eren’s lips opened in surprise, but he wrapped his arms around Armin’s waist and pulled him close, chest to chest and Armin’s hips pressing against the muscle of his thighs. Armin pressed harder, holding them tight together. His heart raced. He could taste Eren, feel his tongue move tentatively underneath his own. Their chapped lips scraped against each other. Eren’s abdominals were hard through his shirt, his hands strong as they moved across Armin’s back.  
  
Eren radiated heat in the chilly air. Armin could feel his cheeks flush and sweat start to tickle on his skin. He sucked the tip of Eren’s tongue, taking it into his mouth to nip, causing Eren’s breath to stumble hot over his face. As Armin pushed Eren back into the wall, Eren’s fingers gripped his waist more tightly, then again until it almost hurt as the two of them slid down to the floor. Armin broke the kiss long enough to clamber inelegantly onto his lap.  
  
Eren was hard. Not fully, but still noticeably through the thin material of his night clothes. Armin sat down firmly and pushed Eren’s legs apart, grinding down against him, and at the motion Eren stuttered a drawn-out moan. His hands clenched in the fabric of Armin's shirt, and Armin couldn't stop himself from grinding down harder. There was a thrill lighting up his blood, a fierce and possessive triumph, a head rush that made him grin and grin into the kiss.  
  
He wanted to feel like this forever.  
  
Eren bucked up with a bitten-back expletive. Then he grabbed Armin's waist, holding him almost too tight.  
  
‘Wait,’ he said, a gasp. ‘Armin – can you stop, just a second–’  
  
For a single moment Armin didn't want to. The possibility of not stopping, of gagging Eren's mouth with kisses as he forced the orgasm out of him, of not stopping until Eren lay boneless on the floor beneath him, flickered across his mind. Then Armin caught his breath and sat back quickly.  
  
Eren's face was flushed, his lips wet and red. His mouth was open to breathe heavily. He looked at Armin, a strange expression in his eyes.  
  
‘I – not that. Can we just kiss, for now? Please?’  
  
Armin didn't reply. His own breath dried out his throat. He wanted – he wanted to pin Eren down. Wanted him sobbing out his release, unable to say no. But the thought came with a tightness behind his eyelids, a sharpness between his ribs, and suddenly Armin couldn't meet Eren's eyes.  
  
He ducked his head, bowing down to press his forehead against Eren's shoulder. He removed his hands to his own thighs, fisted tightly and pressing down on the thin muscle. Eren's hands, faltering a moment, curled around his back.  
  
‘You're not comfortable?’ Armin asked, quiet, flat.  
  
‘No. I mean, it’s not me – no, I'm sorry, we can if you want to.’ Eren's words were forcefully light, badly done.  
  
As they sat there, the noises of the castle echoing around them distantly, Armin chuckled, low and tired sounding to his own ears. His lower legs were cold where they pressed against the stone floor, his back chilly except where Eren's hands warmed him. They weren't exactly being subtle, sitting like this out in the corridor. It might be remote enough that no one should be passing, he knew, but he also knew that letting chance decide was never the better option. Armin buried his face deeper into the creases of Eren's shirt, pressing his nose flat against the hard collarbone. He breathed in. Eren smelt of sweat, leather and soap, earthy and alive.  
  
Eren's hands traced up his back, pulling him back by the shoulders until they were face to face.  
  
‘It's okay,’ he said, wide eyes keenly honest. ‘I swear.’  
  
He pulled Armin into a kiss, but before they could touch Armin blocked him, putting a hand up to push Eren's face to the side.  
  
‘Stop,’ he said, the air tight in his lungs.  
  
Eren didn't move, still as stone from behind Armin's hand, save for the slowing rise of his chest. Armin let his hand drop to cradle Eren's jaw, feeling the brush of stubble on his palm. He turned Eren's head back slowly and kissed him, easing his lips open and searching out the expanse of his mouth, but gently this time, carefully.  
  
Did Eren still have an erection? Armin couldn't tell any more, and didn't dare move to find out. Self-conscious, he combed his fingers through Eren's hair, letting them tangle in the knots instead of pulling them out. Eren's hands were moving again, up and down his back, slow motions like soothing a child. Armin closed his eyes and let them.  
  
Eren's breath still smelt, leaving a sticky, faintly sickly taste in his mouth. Did all kisses always taste bad? Armin broke away to kiss the side of Eren's lips, trailing across the plane of his cheek to his ear, then down along his jawline. His hands roamed across Eren's shoulders, down his chest to graze his nipples, and tucked in under his shirt to splay on his bare stomach. When would Eren stop him? Would he at all?  
  
Armin took his hands away, returning his mouth to press, closed-lipped, against Eren's. He brought up his legs, knees brushing Eren's armpits and feet curled around Eren's body until he was all but clinging. He didn't want to move. Didn't want to part, but to merge into him like he'd seen the flesh of Eren's titan form cling to Eren, cradling him wholly. He put his head back down into the crook of Eren's neck.  
  
He could hear a heartbeat in his ear. Eren's ribs rose and fell rhythmically, and Armin switched his own breathing to mirror it.  
  
They sat there for a while longer, then got up with stiff legs. Eren reached out, hesitant to hold Armin's hand, and Armin pretended not to notice as he took it.  
  
Lying in bed the next morning, in the prized amount of time between waking and having to rise, Armin counted off the days he had left. Fifteen. Fifteen days until the expedition in which he’d probably die.  
  
It wasn’t enough. Armin pressed his forearm over his mouth, covering up his lips, almost smothering his nose. He wanted to scream. Fifteen days wasn’t nearly enough.  
  
When he sat next to Eren at breakfast he ignored the look Mikasa sent them, smiling back mildly around the porridge. When he slowed his team down in training he got up from the ground and tried harder.  
  
Cornering Eren in their lunch break, trailing with lips and tongue down his chest as far as the shirt would allow, he let Eren’s hands halt him from pulling the offending clothing up and off completely. They kissed instead, hot and heady and not quite thrilling.  
  
Ten days until the expedition. Should he tell anyone about Annie?  
  
Armin’s shoulders ached as he hauled buckets of water down from the well to the stables, pausing a moment to stand and catch his breath, watching the horses drink. Annie should have reported it if she’d taken anyone’s gear, which could have happened if her own had broken or run out of gas. And yet she hadn’t. She’d never shied from following protocol before, despite her obvious disdain for it. Why now? Maybe it was simply a mistake on his own part. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jean on mucking out duty, covered in straw. Perhaps he could ask him if Marco’s gear had been there when he’d been found.  
  
Eren remained busy training with Captain Levi and his squad. That evening Armin sat out behind the tool sheds, on the long, stalky grass, and with bent legs splayed open he masturbated with his mouth wide open, sucking in the cold air. He pressed the back of his head against the old wooden shed, grinding the heels of his boots into the dirt, and arching his back he came into his hand, silent save for his panting breath.  
  
Five days left.  
  
He thought of titans. The softness of the tongue when he’d almost been eaten, wet and hot, turning the whole world red. He wondered whether Hasek would scream as he got eaten, or if he’d be the sort to freeze up and go silently, like himself.  
  
There were battle formations to learn, technique impossible to train for enough. Sleepless nights. He watched his friends and hands start to jitter with nerves. He watched Eren from a distance, where he sat and talked with his new squad, and thought he might hate them if he wasn’t so exhausted, if he didn’t just want this expedition to be over, one way or another.  
  
When they finally rode out it almost felt like an anti-climax.


	9. Chapter 9

Armin’s head hurt. His body ached. He couldn't stop thinking about Annie.

He should be grateful he was alive at all, he supposed. That all his friends were alive and uninjured. And yet–

He remembered Annie turning her head when she couldn't stop herself from smiling, just so no one would see. Annie who stood back and let people make their own mistakes. Intelligent, seeing the world and the people in it as they were, instead of being dragged down by black-and-white morality. Strong and standoffish and still a little kind when she wanted to be.

His head hurt. Bruised, a hard knot scraped raw and bleeding, it made his eyesight blur and his thoughts painful. It made him want to sleep, or throw up.

Strong, quiet, clever Annie. Annie the traitor, not quite clever enough.

He wasn’t surprised. Did that make him a bad friend? She should have killed him when she had the chance.

Armin didn't say much during the impromptu meeting. He'd already put forward his case and been believed. Now as they sat in the dark basement room talking about Annie, only not Annie the teammate but Annie the enemy, he felt nauseated and tired. Annie had never been his friend. Except – that wasn’t right. She had, it just didn't matter any more.

That was probably something she would have said, he thought.

He was a terrible friend.

Erwin had started to talk about how they were to capture her, and Armin forced his eyes to focus and his back to straighten. He needed to listen. He wanted this. He wouldn't let her harm Eren again.

They outlined the plan and his involvement in it, and Armin didn’t voice the apprehension crawling in his skin, overriding the small amount of warming pride. It was his own plan that their commander had chosen to follow, but could he even do his part? What if he’d overestimated himself? Damn her. Armin closed his eyes for a long second, trying to drive away the distraction of his pain and focus on what satisfaction he had left after seeing Eren’s hurt eyes. He could do it. If Commander Erwin thought it would work, then it would work.

The meeting ended and chairs scraped across the floor as everyone got up to leave. Armin hung behind, watching Eren's stiff back and clenched hands as he walked away, shoulder to shoulder with Mikasa and following Captain Levi closely. Armin took a few steps towards them, then stopped and turned, waiting.

‘Commander Erwin,’ he said, and Erwin paused in looking at the notes in his hand to glance up. ‘May I ask you something?’

‘Go ahead,’ Erwin replied mildly. They were the only two left in the room. The difference in the depths of their voices, and the angle of Armin's neck looking up to meet his commander's eye, made his throat tight and uncomfortable.

‘Is there anyone,’ Armin began, and had to swallow and look down at the rough surface of the table, keenly aware of the open door at his back and the metres of space between them. ‘In the Military Police, that is. Is there anyone who supports Eren? They can't all think the same, surely.’

Erwin stayed silent for long enough that Armin risked a glance up at his face, then quickly down again when he saw Erwin's calculating eyes staring back at him. He could feel his hands start to jitter and he clenched them into fists, pressed them tight against his legs. Had it been an inappropriate question? It felt like Erwin towered above him, as if he were whole, vast metres taller. The width of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, the heavy lines of muscle on his broad thighs and arms – the thought of him reaching out and seizing Armin, his grip like steel, as inescapable as gravity, would not leave. Armin shifted on his feet, wishing desperately that he’d stood further away. He should meet Erwin’s eye. He was being disrespectful.

‘Why do you want to know?’ came the eventual answer, measured to the point of blandness.  
  
Armin hesitated. ‘It's mostly curiosity,’ he said, and licked his dry lips. ‘I think I would feel a lot better if I knew we weren't totally opposed.’

Erwin hummed shortly, a noncommittal sound. ‘Very few,’ he said, starting to walk out of the door and up the stairs. Armin followed, a careful five steps behind. ‘And even fewer who can make any amount of difference. Of those, only Lieutenant Colonel Franz Hasek is confirmed to support Eren. Is that what you wanted to know?’

Armin didn't pause in his step. He heard himself say, ‘Oh,’ as he carried on walking, feeling the hard stone under the soles of his boots and not much else. ‘Yes,’ he added hurriedly as they reached the top of the stairs, blinking in the sharp daytime light, painfully bright after the cellar torches. He couldn't quite focus on his own words, or anything but the sting in his eyes. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Erwin nodded in recognition, a slight motion. He stared down at Armin and Armin looked away, trying to breathe out the tension in his chest.

‘Very well,’ Erwin said. ‘I'm sure you have things to be doing.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Armin said again. He saluted, muscle memory. ‘Thank you, sir.’

It was as clear a dismissal as any. Armin tried not to walk away too fast, aiming to grasp at what Erwin had said but missing, like failing to catch dust motes. Why had he even asked? He'd put it behind him. It didn't matter any more. The light still hurt his eyes.

And the answer – Hasek had kept his word after all. Had Erwin known why he’d been asking? How could he answer so specifically otherwise?

Shame made Armin’s face flush. Then he clenched his hands tighter, digging his short fingernails into his palm, and jogged back to the mess where he hoped to find Eren. See how he felt about Annie. Whether he believed in her still, because Eren far too loyal. He never liked changing his mind.

Loyal. If it turned out that Annie was innocent after all, then would Eren lose his trust in Armin? Maybe. Probably.

Hasek hadn’t lied. Erwin had taken Armin’s word on the Female Titan’s identity and agreed to follow his plan, even though he must know what Armin had done.

Armin found Eren in his room, which he’d been given to recover from his titan form in, a considerable upgrade from the underground cell. Armin wondered whether the Military Police knew Eren wasn’t in chains back in the dungeon as a prisoner, now that it had been agreed they’d hand him over for execution. He wondered what had happened that Captain Levi trusted him so suddenly.

Then again, it wasn’t sudden. Eren had trained with the captain and his squad for over a month now.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ was the first thing Eren said. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees and back curved, hair hanging over his downturned face. ‘Why’d she do it? She doesn’t have any reason to. Annie wouldn’t just kill people like that.’

Armin stood in the middle of the room, silent. _Yes_ , he wanted to say. _Yes she would. It does make sense, you just don’t want to see it._

Sudden anger stewed in his gut, making his spine tense and brittle. His head throbbed, painful. He needed to sleep. God, he hated her.

‘You don’t know it’s her, right?’ Eren said. ‘No one actually knows, since there’s no proof. So really it could be anyone.’

Armin clenched his jaw. He wanted to grab Eren and shake him, shout at him until he understood. He itched for the whole ploy to be over just so he could point at Annie the traitor, show Eren the absolute proof and see it on his face. He ached to wipe away every place she’d ever touched Eren, destroy all evidence and memory of it. She didn’t deserve him. Maybe she could have, but that didn’t matter. Not any more.

He went over to Eren, pushing him down onto his back and rolling him over the covers. Ignoring how Eren went boneless, letting his body be manipulated when he could have so easily stopped it, Armin pulled off his boots and crawled onto the bed himself. Eren lay on his back so Armin tucked in beside him, half covering him, half lying on his side, one bent leg sprawled over Eren’s thighs and their chests pressed together.

Eren accepted the contact without a fight. Armin resisted the urge to make him struggle.

‘If she’s innocent,’ he said, their faces close enough he could see the pores and thin hairs on Eren’s skin, ‘then we’ll find out, and she’ll be fine.’

Eren didn’t reply, though his lips twisted like he wanted to. Armin tucked his head down so he didn’t have to look. So Eren didn’t believe him. It shouldn’t matter – they’d find out soon enough anyway.

It did matter – but even so, Eren’s solid presence, bones and soft, slackened muscle, seemed to drain him. Armin relaxed unwillingly and didn’t move as hands curled over his waist, inching up to encircle his lower back. It felt like the contact could suck away his anger, melt them together into something tired and still. Eren didn’t trust him but that was okay. They’d find out the truth soon. Hasek hadn’t lied, so maybe he’d help to save Eren after all.

He looked up at Eren’s face, eyes closed as if sleeping, warmth radiating up from his body. He wondered whether they should kiss, because that’s what he and Eren did now, wasn’t it? It was what adults did in bed. Not like the three of them in the refugee camps cuddling up to conserve heat and ward away the nightmares, both real and imagined.

Moving, even to kiss, seemed like too much effort for too little reward. He didn’t want anything other than Eren’s arms around him, like they already were. With a sudden lump in his throat, he realised that he wanted Mikasa’s arms around him, too.

.

When Annie proceeded to prove herself a traitor, when she stood at the mouth of the tunnel and refused to walk down the stairs, Armin felt numb and disjointed. He was right, and he’d known he would be right, but he still shouldn’t be. She should be better than that. His teeth hurt, right down to the bones of his jaw. The knot on his head seemed to leak pain down the back of his neck, like wet hair. And Eren wouldn’t be quiet, wouldn’t shut up as he refused to see the truth staring down at them.

Then everything started to go wrong.

He’d hardly thought over the new plan until he was already standing by the pool of sunlight, dust forming a gritty layer on his teeth, and getting in his eyes. His old plan had failed. He’d failed. Armin looked back at Eren and paused for a second, as if waiting for the explosion of transformation that had to happen, because surely Eren must value Mikasa’s life, if nothing else, over wilful ignorance, stubbornly clinging onto the past. Surely he couldn’t hesitate to fight if not doing so meant putting Mikasa at risk. Surely she had to mean more than Annie’s broken image did.

And if she – they – didn’t, Armin thought wildly, as the smell of blood and thick stone dust made his lungs wheeze, and the memory of a giant hand slapping the air from his chest and the sense from his head, knocking him head over heels on the hard earth, returned like a physical blow, then what did it matter if he fought Annie and died? He’d be plucked from the air or slapped aside in an instant, struck onto the stone buildings like a conker on the end of its string. His body would shatter, break apart, collapse into itself in a mess of ruined organs and meat. And it wouldn’t matter at all.

It didn’t matter, he thought, but he still didn’t want to die. Armin hesitated.

Eren transformed then, the power of his titan form forcing an eruption of air down the tunnel. Armin covered his face with his arms, splinters of rock striking his bare hands, burrowing under the skin in little flakes of pain. The ceiling shook, hard hammer strikes that poured new white dust into the air, and Armin almost laughed behind his coughs. Eren had done it.

The battle passed like a blur, and as he stood there and watched, Armin wondered whether it was terrible that he could be proud to look at the form of a titan, grotesquely muscled, disproportionate, the split rows of teeth monstrous. The titan – no – Eren moved with control. When he fought it was familiar, expert, far from the animal lumbering and pounces of non-human titans. When his strength failed and Annie started to climb out of reach he stopped fighting, hunkered down with his head close to where Armin stood, stooping to listen. He tossed Mikasa up with care. Armin stood on Eren’s palm and didn’t fear the gale wind of his humid breath, rushing out between his open jaws.

The hesitation came later, after he’d pulled Eren from the stringy, hot meat of his titan form. Armin stopped and stared into the thick crystal surrounding Annie, even as Eren asked after her. The absolute stillness looked unnatural, wrong and uncanny. He tried to think of how she did it and what it meant, whether she was dead or merely frozen. Did she sleep or was she only immobile, clawing at the insides of her mind in the frustration of paralysis?

Instead of answers to his questions all he got was a sharp tightness in his chest. With a mind like hers she could have risen quickly in the Military Police, shaping them as she thought appropriate. She could have had as easy a life as she’d wanted. She could have been brilliant. Then why’d she do it? Armin looked away and followed as Eren’s unconscious body was taken to the carriage. Maybe he’d only ever imagined the understanding between them.

That evening, when they finally returned along the dusty, bumpy road to the Scouting Corps headquarters, Armin stood with Mikasa at the side of the bed, looking down together at Eren’s unconscious form. The skin on his face was fading back to normal, raised cords of flesh sinking away.

‘That was pretty close,’ Armin said in the quiet. ‘All the ways it could have gone wrong but didn’t, that is.’

Mikasa leant forward to brush the back of a finger along Eren’s cheek, down one of the ridges. Eren didn’t respond.

‘You did a good job,’ Mikasa said as she straightened. Armin tilted his head to look at her, and she turned to him. ‘Stopping it from going wrong.’

Cheap manipulation, Armin recognised, but effective all the same. He smiled as the small, satisfied bubble in his chest grew a little larger. In the end, did it even matter whether he and Annie thought the same? Annie had lost, and they’d won.

After the meeting with Commander Erwin, Armin returned to find Mikasa sitting by the bed, now in the night-time darkness. She glanced up at him as he entered, then stood to stretch her arms up above her head, deliberate and sleek. Armin blinked at her from the shadows, stepping aside automatically to let her through the door when she walked to it.

‘You’re leaving?’ he asked quietly, taken aback.

‘He’s just sleeping,’ Mikasa said as she stood in the doorway. ‘And you’re here, now.’

‘Oh,’ Armin said. ‘Thank you.’

He thought he saw Mikasa smile faintly, but in the dark it was hard to tell. She shut the door and her footsteps in the corridor faded entirely before Armin moved.

Sitting down in the chair, still slightly warm, he pulled off his boots and unbuckled his gear. Not wanting to knock anything off the dresser he folded it with his trousers and left them on the floor, then padded to the bed. Eren made a shadowed lump, indistinguishable from the covers which Armin gingerly pulled up at the sides to slide under. Balancing on the edge of the thin mattress, wondering how much of the covers he could pull around himself before he’d be exposing Eren to the cool air, Armin froze tight as arms reached around his waist and pulled him into the middle of the bed. They withdrew as quickly as they came, and letting out the breath that had caught in his throat Armin rolled over.

‘Sorry,’ Eren said. Their bodies lay very close, the sound of the word mixing into vibration and air movement, but in the dark he was nearly invisible.

‘Don’t be,’ Armin replied. He sighed and burrowed a little closer. Their knees touched and he reached out a hand to brush Eren’s arm, running his fingertips over the curve of relaxed muscle. Eren’s sleeve bunched up from the motion and Armin let his hand fall into the small space between them.

Heat soaked into his skin and he closed his eyes, letting his body fall loose and sleepy. Eren’s knees shifted against his own. He let out a long breath.

‘When I couldn’t transform,’ Eren started, and Armin’s eyes opened reluctantly. ‘I’m sorry. I... need to learn more. I don’t want to put you and Mikasa in danger next time.’

He didn’t have an answer to that, too tired to think of one, so Armin pushed Eren over onto his back and kissed him, lingering. Their lips fit better, he thought muzzily. Then he lay down again, tucking his hands under his own chin, one leg between Eren’s. His head ached still, but distantly, and did little to slow his falling asleep. He thought that next time, he should ask Mikasa to stay.


	10. Chapter 10

Armin could feel the lub-dub tempo of his heart beating hard in his chest, like it was trying to break out of his ribs. His head buzzed with pressure. The breath sawed in his throat and his hands shook as he clutched his reins, pushing his horse faster. It took him a long time to realise that it wasn’t fear that ran like fire through his body.  
  
The past few days felt like an endless blur in his memory, a bad dream that was starting to disintegrate under the inspection of waking thoughts: more traitors, more friends in danger on the front lines – if they even were friends, and not secretly the enemy as well. The ride out to meet them, huddled up close to Mikasa and Eren. Eren fighting with the Armoured Titan, and being taken away.  
  
Armin's eyes felt itchy and hot. Annie was gone. And now Reiner and Bertolt, and possibly Ymir as well?  
  
They’d taken Eren. They’d taken him and hurt him and Armin wanted to snap their necks, snatch Eren back – and god he was angry, so angry he could feel the physical pressure of it ache behind his eyes and in his teeth, squeezing through the blood vessels of his rapid-beating heart.  
  
How hadn't he seen it before? How had he sat with Bertolt in the classroom, resting together in the shadows and away from the boisterousness of their other teammates, and not realised it? And how had Reiner laughed good-naturedly at Armin’s fumbling when he didn't pick up on a joke, then turned to defend him from the jeers of a less-kind nature, when he was what he was?  
  
And now that Armin knew, what should he do about it?  
  
He felt sick as he approached the Armoured Titan's form, his horse tense under his legs, jerking at the bit. His burns ached and he tightened his hands into fists, forcing the pain to throb. He didn't know what to do – Captain Levi had told him to keep thinking of his plans, hadn't he. Except he’d failed. He was useless, helpless, unable to do anything when Eren needed him the most.  
  
Think of plans. Armin couldn't stop thinking, but his thoughts ran in circles and clogged themselves up with useless memories that wouldn't leave. He hadn't stopped thinking since they'd talked with Hange. It was just the ideas he lacked.  
  
As he clung on to the Armoured Titan's neck, Reiner's neck, he thought of the time he'd twisted his ankle. Reiner had picked him up effortlessly and given him a piggyback ride, Armin's arms slung over his broad, muscled shoulders.  
  
He remembered the gratitude and the embarrassment; they still sat tight in his belly and clawed at his insides. But everything had changed since then, hadn't it. They weren't who they'd said they were.  
  
As if from a distance, it occurred to Armin that, in the time they’d stood on Reiner’s shoulders, Reiner could have squashed them all. He hadn’t even brushed them off. He’d let them talk. Bertolt's face was twisted. His short fringe stuck to his forehead and his eyes were wild. They were both still listening to their old friends, not focused like Annie had been.  
  
Oh. Annie.  
  
‘Is it really okay?’ Armin said. The words fell out of his mouth like ants from a nest, like wasps, barely audible above the rush of wind. He was smiling without meaning to. ‘You’re going to leave Annie behind?’  
  
Bertolt’s eyes widened. His desperate anger broke so comically easily, and as it did something eased in the tangle inside Armin’s chest.  
  
‘She’s being tortured with ingenious methods,’ he said, and as Bertolt stepped forward out of safety and into the reach of Erwin’s blade, Armin’s smile turned wide enough to ache. He barely heard the order for retreat, eyes enraptured by the hopeless, helplessness of Bertolt’s honest face, blood spilling as he fell. Mikasa caught Eren and fled to safety, and Armin followed. The freeness between his ribs felt like intoxication.  
  
.  
  
There was even less room for privacy in the forest cabin than there had been in the barracks, but neither Jean or Connie – so few of them left – said anything when Armin ended up in Eren’s bed.  
  
Tucked under the covers and between Eren’s arms, lying in the dark, cicadas loud outside, Armin let his eyes settle shut. In the past few days something had shifted inside of him, lightened his lungs and made his head strangely clear, like being able to breathe again after a blocked nose. He touched at the feeling but it evaded him still. What was he that he could have felt what he did, when helping to destroy a good friend?  
  
Across the small room Jean sneezed, turning over on sheets dusty from storage. Eren shifted a little, curling up to press against Armin’s side.  
  
What next, then? What should he do?  
  
What did he want to do?  
  
Armin sat up and looked at Eren, who made a small questioning noise. Their fingers laced together for a moment before Armin bent, and in the darkness ended up kissing the side of Eren’s nose. He felt Eren smile. Then he got up and climbed the ladder to the top bunk, his own bed.   
  
The sheets were cold and stiff but he curled up in them anyway, tugging them close around himself as they grew warmer.


End file.
